Flight Risk
by Seriana Ritani
Summary: A midnight attack drives the X-Men into a deal with the devil; Jean wrestles with the demons of Logan's past; Gambit and Rogue land on opposite sides of a war of ideals; and Cyclops is out to prove that justice really is blind. A "Flight" story.
1. Chapter 1

Flight Risk  
An X-Men: Evolution Fan Fiction  
By Seriana Ritani

* * *

The piercing, wailing alarm jerked Rogue awake. It resonated through the whole house, accompanied by a sudden flood of dim red light. Across the room, Kitty woke up with a shriek of surprise and terror, dropping straight through her mattress and landing with a thud on the floor underneath her bed.

Rogue didn't waste time kicking her way out of her blankets; she just grabbed them in both fists and tore. "It's happening!"

* * *

Three months earlier . . .

* * *

"The right to privacy," Professor Rosenbaum announced, reading the words off the whiteboard where he'd slashed them in large blue letters. "Does it exist? Do we, as American citizens, have the right to keep secrets from one another? Is it in the Constitution? Should it be?" He capped the marker with an assertive click and tossed it into the chalk tray. "Discuss."

"The right to privacy is affirmed by hundreds of court cases," someone spoke up. "It may not be in the Constitution, but there's definitely judicial precedent."

"But the so-called 'right to privacy' interferes with law enforcement," someone else countered. "Surely the right to life, liberty and property takes priority."

"The so-called rights to life, liberty, and property don't appear in the Constitution either."

"The Constitution was never meant to be a comprehensive outline of the rights of U.S. citizens. Look at the right to vote. That's expanded radically since the Constitution was signed."

"It's expanded radically through Constitutional amendment. There's no 'right-to-privacy amendment,' so there's no right to privacy."

"So you're okay with the government putting bugs and cameras in your apartment? In your bathroom? In your bedroom?"

"I didn't say I was okay with it. I'm just saying that right now there's no real way for us to prevent the government from doing it."

"But if there was a constitutional right to privacy, what would that do to things like background checks? Public records? Freedom of the press? Registries for sex offenders and other criminals?"

"What about mutants?" asked Rogue.

Silence fell across the lecture hall. Every head turned to look at her.

She groaned inside her head. Her natural instinct would have been to just shut her mouth and stay under the radar, but she'd been listening to Professor Xavier for too long. And now she was in her least favorite situation: alone, and the center of attention.

Her professor's gray eyes fixed on her, one eyebrow carefully raised. "What about mutants, indeed," he echoed. "As we speak, a committee composed of members of both parties from the House, the Senate, and the White House is actively discussing the composition and proposal of a bill that would require anyone carrying a mutant gene to register in a national, public, online database. Perhaps, Rogue, you would care to give us your perspective on the issue."

Rogue felt the blood drain out of her face. "What?"

"The bill's due to be presented when Congress re-convenes. What are your feelings on the subject?"

Rogue struggled to keep herself calm. "Mah feelings . . . shock. Horror. Disgust. Terror. Fury. Is that enough feelings for you?"

"You believe the measure to be unjust?"

"Unjust? It's sick!" She was up out of her seat by now. "There are people in this country with special powers who spend their whole lives just tryin' to fit in. They've never hurt anybody, and never will. And you want them to _register_, like sex offenders? So people can throw rocks through their windows and deny 'em jobs and car loans and health insurance?"

"But mutants are dangerous," one of her classmates countered. "Citizens have a right to know if they live in the same neighborhood as convicted criminals, or in the same town as a nuclear storage facility . . ."

"You callin' me trash, CJ?" Rogue asked, letting a little too much southern sass creep into her voice. She won a chuckle from the listening audience. "Ah'm an Omega mutant. Ah'm plenty powerful. You think you shoulda got an e-mail before the semester started, tellin' you about me and givin' you the chance to move to another section? Or the chance to make me move to another section? Or drop outta school?"

"It's just a registry," someone else said. "It's paperwork. A registry isn't going to turn mutants into second-class citizens."

Rogue felt her hands clamp down on the edge of her desk. She was within a hairsbreadth of crushing holes in it, or of ripping the desk out of the floor. Instead, she snatched up her backpack and fished out her wallet.

"Look," she ordered, fishing out a photograph and storming down the risers to shove it in his face. "Look right there. That boy's name is Jamie Madrox. He's my housemate. He's fourteen years old and his voice still cracks. Last week, a bunch of high school jocks stuffed him in a dumpster and stood and watched while he got picked up by a garbage truck. They _stood there_ and watched it nearly crush him to death. Not one of the jocks was punished. The Xavier Institute is paying for damages inflicted to the truck when Sam smashed through the thing to get Jamie out. So you look at my friend here and you tell me mutants aren't second-class citizens."

The boy, though shaken, tried to argue back. "That's one isolated incident . . ."

"'Isolated incident' my butt. This stuff happens _all the time_. Ever since the Xavier Institute went public as the country's only organized mutant community, we've been singled out and discriminated against. Half the businesses in town won't sell to us. We can't play on sports teams or enter competitions . . . can't even try out for school plays. Even right here at NYU-B, the administration makes me and all my housemates take all our tests in isolation. And we can't go to another university because this is the only one that will take us. Provided we pay a non-refundable deposit every semester equal to double our tuition."

She took a deep breath to keep herself from boiling over, tucking the photo back into the vinyl picture-sleeve in her wallet. The Professor's steady eyes looked up at her from the group shot, gently encouraging her to keep her cool.

"Mutant registration isn't harmless. American citizens with the X gene are still American citizens. If they're forced to go public, they'll be hunted down like animals. Y'all all know they will. And some of them will fight back, and no one will be able to blame 'em for it, but people will get hurt. You wanna be safe from mutants? Just leave 'em alone. Mind your own business, and let us mind ours. Holy snot, is that so much to ask?"

The bell rang. Rogue looked down at her watch. How long had she been ranting?

Professor Rosenbaum grabbed his syllabus off the lectern. "Okay, nobody forget you've got pages 171 to 205 for tomorrow, _and_ the online quiz."

Rogue hurried back to her desk, grabbing her notebook and textbooks and stuffing them haphazardly into her backpack. She'd made a complete fool of herself. She had to get out of here.

"Hey."

She looked up. The boy in whose face she'd shoved the picture of the Institute students was standing over her, his backpack on one shoulder.

"That was some speech," he told her. "You ever consider joining the debate team?"

"Mutants aren't allowed on the debate team," Rogue deadpanned. "Besides, Ah got enough conflict in my life."

The boy extended his hand. "I'm Will."

Rogue eyed the hand suspiciously, then took it. "Rogue."

"Do you . . . do you have a class right now? Or do you have a minute for a coffee or something?"

"Um . . ." Rogue felt her repressed rage fade into the back of her mind, replaced by a particularly human strain of discomfort that bordered on panic. She was not accustomed to being approached like this, and had very little idea of how to handle it. "You mean, like, to talk over class stuff, or . . ."

"Yeah, if you want to."

"Ah, um . . ." Rogue shouldered her bag and tucked one of her stripes behind her ear. "Ah really gotta get home and tell the Professor about this registration act thing."

"Don't worry about it. They'll never pass it." Will fell into step beside her as she headed out the door and into the hallway. "It's obviously unconstitutional. You said so yourself."

"Ah know, but the Professor has political contacts—"

"Well, let me give you a ride, then. My car's just—"

"Ah'm kind of involved with somebody," Rogue blurted out.

"Wonderin' when I was gonna pop up in dis conversation," Gambit commented. He was leaning on the wall outside the classroom door, smirking. "Hey, _chère_. Miss me?"

Instead of waiting for an answer, he caught her around the waist and kissed her.

Rogue found herself caught up in a swirl of emotion, information, and energy. A kiss wasn't just a kiss with Remy, it was _everything_ . . . it was losing her entire self and swallowing up Remy's to replace it. Every time they touched, she learned him all over again. And now she tasted jealousy in him, and territoriality, and smugness, and pride. This kid was a rival, and Remy had to put him in his place. The kiss was a boast as much as an embrace: _Dis is mine, and no one gonna take it from me, least of all a poli-sci freshman like you. Move along, Kid. Better luck next time._

The information that Rogue passed back to Remy through their kiss was mostly along the lines of _You are such a jerk. I would shove you through the wall this second if . . . um . . . dang, lost my train of thought._

Rogue pulled back from the kiss, forcing herself not to smile while struggling for balance, and turned away from Remy. "Um . . ." Oh, drat, Remy's kiss had made her forget this guy's name. Will! Will, that was it. "Will, Ah'll see you in class on Wednesday, 'kay?"

"Yeah," Will agreed despondently. "Later."

Remy grinned at Will's retreating back. "Don't handle disappointment well, does he?"

"He was just bein' nice," Rogue insisted.

"He was hittin' on you," Remy told her, with the finality of someone who has decided that this is the last word on the matter.

Rogue rolled her eyes.

"Not dat I kin blame him," Remy observed magnanimously as the two of them headed out of the building. "If I was him, I'd be tryin' to make a play, too. I dunno if I've told you dis lately, but you, Miz Rogue, are one fine-lookin' woman." He playfully kissed the top of her head. "Good school?"

"Lousy. But Ah don't wanna talk about it right now. Let's just go home."

"Sound stressed," Remy observed. "De question is: are you seventy-mile-an-hour stressed or ninety-mile-an-hour stressed?"

"Kin we do a hundred?"

"Your wish is my command."

Motorcycles got good parking. Gambit's bike was pulled right up to the sidewalk, with two helmets locked to the handlebars with a bike chain. He flicked the combination, freed her helmet, and tossed it to her. Rogue shook back her head to get her hair back off her face. That turned out to be a mistake.

Something caught Gambit's eye. He stopped, his helmet held out in front of him, on the verge of being fitted to his head. "Rogue."

"Yeah?"

"Wha's dat?"

_Aw, crap._ She played dumb. "What's what?"

He reached towards her face and planted one accusing finger on her left earlobe. "_That_," he insisted, sticking his tongue between his teeth so he'd be absolutely sure he said the _th_ clearly and she couldn't misunderstand.

She shook her hair down over her ear. "Don't start with me."

"Rogue."

"Don't! Ah've had a hundred-mile-an-hour day and Ah just wanna go a hundred miles an hour without havin' this stupid fight one more time."

"C'mon, Rogue . . ." Now he was pleading, which was harder for her to counter.

"_No_."

He lowered his voice, not to wheedle, but to keep passing students from overhearing them. "I'm a Master T'ief, Rogue. You're my woman. And how does it look if a Master T'ief's girl goes wanderin' around in public wearin', of all unholy things, cubic freaking zirconia?"

"It is one pair of worthless three-buck earrings, Remy! Nobody cares! Ah'm entitled to wear three-buck earrings to school if I want to."

He had his thumb behind her earlobe now. She could see him trying to figure out if he could get the simple faux-diamond stud out of her ear before she grabbed his hand and broke his wrist.

"Nobody'd care, _bébé_. Nobody'd even be able to tell."

"Ah am not comin' to school with fifty thousand dollars' worth of rocks in my ears!"

"Five thousand?"

"No!"

"Five hundred. I'll steal somet'in' on sale at Sears."

"_Gambit_!"

"Please. It's embarrassing."

She dropped her voice to a hissing, angry whisper. "Ah'm real sure the Thieves' Guild spends its time checkin' out my _ears_ as a way of makin' sure that you're livin' up to that thing." Her eyes darted down to his shoulder, where they both knew the black scar of his rank was hidden underneath his clothes.

His arm was around her waist, drawing her to him. Trying the charm now. Gambit had no compunction whatsoever about PDA; out of the corner of her eye, she saw a cluster of coeds slow down to stare at them.

"You," he murmured . . . he'd dropped his voice by half an octave, too, the cheater . . . "are de most beautiful woman in de world." His bright and blazing eyes were doing that smoldering thing, which he only did when he wanted her to do something and needed her to forget why she didn't want to do it. "And I . . ." There was the arrogance; he was still incurably self-absorbed . . . "am de best t'ief in de world. An' you're my girl. If dere is any one person on dis planet who should not be reduced to to de outright indignity of wearing fake stones, it is you. People'll start talkin', say I ain't treatin' you right."

She meant to snap at him, but her voice came out kind of vague and dreamy; he had a kind of power that took the sharp edges off words. "Since when do you care what people talk about?"

"Jus' lemme spoil you _un tout petit peu_. One thing. A stone, a pearl, anyt'in' you want."

"Anythin' Ah want?"

"Name it. It's yours."

Ha. She had him now. She slid her arms around his neck, her helmet dangling from her fingers to hang between his shoulder blades, and sidled just a little bit closer to keep him from realizing he'd just made her an unconditional promise. Proximity could turn his brain off if she played it right. "What Ah want, right now, more than anything in the whole world . . ."

"_Dites-le moi._"

"Ah wanna get on this bike. Ah wanna drive at a hundred miles an hour. Ah wanna go home, take a shower, and do homework in front of the fire in the library while you play with mah hair and we eat chocolate-chip cookies. Can you steal me all that, Master Thief?"

He closed his eyes, and his lips pressed into one thin, hard line. She'd got him, the sucker. "You are a very frustratin' woman," he informed her.

"And you're a pain in the butt, but you promised and now you're stuck." She sidestepped deftly out of his embrace, shook her hair back again (hoping that the cheap little earrings flashed the sun straight into his eyes), and slipped her helmet on with an air of great satisfaction. "Let's go."

* * *

Author's Notes:

Hi! Is anybody out there? I'm back! I missed you!

Author's Militant Disclaimers! _Flight Risk_ is NOT FINISHED YET. All the other _Flight _stories had been through at least three whole drafts before seeing the light at good old ff dot net. However, after two months of writing, eighteen months of dreaming but not being able to write, and seven more months of writing, I'm kind of sick of the sound of my own voice. And this project is massive . . . already far and away longer and more intricate than _Fly By Night_. So I am publishing. Tentatively. Carefully. Because I'm starting to realize that I need the fresh perspective that comes with knowing I have an audience. And I miss all my wonderful reviewer buddies . . . let's hope you're all subscribed and know when this goes up. And if I were you guys, and I'd been promised another story well over two years ago, I'd be kind of miffed by now. So I ask for your patience. This is going to be published more slowly than the other stories were, so I can keep my writing well ahead of the light of day. I hope I won't have to, but I may have to backtrack and fix stuff. (I really hope I don't have to . . . gosh, that'd be embarrassing.) And I hope for your feedback and your encouragement . . . in the past, your reviews have made me a better and a happier writer than I have any business being.

A million thanks to Escajunkie, who's been my companion in solitude while I got my writing groove back.

Okay, that's enough out-of-character stuff. OOC's no fun anyway, right?

French lessons:

_Un tout petit peu:_ Just a tiny bit.

_Dites-le moi:_ Tell me.

If you can't figure out _bébé_, you can go GoogleTranslate it.

And . . . that's it! We're off and running!

—Seri


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

* * *

Why, _why_ did this have to happen on a weeknight? A Saturday might have found Rogue curled up in Remy's room, close enough to infuse her invulnerability into his skin before she shot out the window. But there was no time. No time for anything. She had a job to do if any of them were going to make it out of this house. The whole team was counting on her. They were all counting on each other tonight.

She smashed through the window, sprinkling glass down onto the lawn. Behind her, she heard the heavy steel DEFCON-4 barrier drop into place, sealing her teammates inside. In the darkness, she could see shapes moving: soldiers and vehicles, surrounding the house. Some of them might have already gotten inside before the lockdown.

That wasn't her problem. Her problem was the helicopters. Her problem was the fighter jets that might still be en route. Her problem was watching Storm's back.

Storm had burst through the skylight of her room, trailing lightning from her fingers and the ends of her hair. She was wearing the white nightgown in which she usually slept, and gleamed like a star over the house.

Rogue heard machine-gun fire.

* * *

Scott found Jean down in Cerebro, her posture hunched as though the helmet pressed down on her head like a ton of bricks. Though the enormous telepathy-enhancer ensured she could hear him coming from a thousand miles away, it didn't look like she'd noticed him come in.

He set a hand gently on her shoulder and leaned forward to see if her eyes were open. They weren't. In fact, her whole face was clenched, lines of stress and effort carved across her forehead.

"Jean?"

"Just a sec," she breathed. The lines in her face faded, she rose up from her hunched posture to stretch her back, and her eyelids hesitantly raised up to let in the dim light of the Cerebro control room. When she'd safely shut down her connection to the machine, she removed the helmet and set it back in its housing, shaking out her hair. "Yeah?"

"What're you doing? I thought you were upstairs working on next week's training plans."

"I _was_ working on the training plans," she insisted. "But I had an idea. You know how we were planning on running more CP scenarios?"

"Yeah . . ." Complementary power training was Professor Xavier's latest idea. Most of the X-Men were as close to proficient in their own powers as any mutants their age could expect to be. The next step was figuring out the dozens of ways that their individual powers could be combined, to achieve results that one single mutant couldn't reach on his or her own. Already Amara and Bobby had started to figure out that between the two of them, they could rapidly heat-and-cool just about anything into a million pieces. Hank was talking about moving the good china to a safe deposit box.

"Well, I was working on the scenarios, and it suddenly just hit me . . . I have two powers."

"Yeah . . ."

"And I've always kind of dealt with them separately. TP, TK. And I'm not super-good at either of them . . . there are people better than me at both . . . but then I thought, what if I used them together?"

"What, like picking somebody up and reading their mind at the same time?"

"No." She pressed her index and middle fingers against her temples, closing her eyes again as she concentrated. "Why's the Professor a better telepath than I am? I don't mean like he's an Omega and I'm just an Alpha. Just on a basic, practical level . . . why can't I keep up? What holds me back? It's that I get _headaches_. The headaches tell me when I've hit the limits of my telepathy. That's where I have to give up. It's like muscle burn. But it's _physical_. All this time I've been pushing my telepathy to stretch the boundaries of the headaches, but what if I used the telekinesis? Can I shut off my own headaches? I mean, it's physical, it's pressure, it's something pushing inside my scull. So if I can figure out where that is, and just syphon it off . . . could I keep up with Professor Xavier?"

Scott didn't say anything.

"Wow, Jean," Jean said to herself on his behalf, "that's really cool. You're finding a new way to expand your powers. Good for you."

"No, it's . . . it's a cool idea." Scott leaned back against the edge of the control panel, folding his arms. "Have you talked to Professor Xavier about it yet?"

"No. With the political situation and everything . . . I don't think he really has the attention to spare for helping me right now. But this is going fine. I'm down to half a headache already."

"Just . . . I just want to put big red BE CAREFUL letters all over this. Your powers have gotten out of your control before, and it was really, really really, extremely very scary. I don't want to watch that again."

"That was high school, Scott. A long time ago."

"Not long enough. I still remember way too clearly. If you think you're ready to do this, I trust your judgment. But please, for my sake, take it slow and be very careful."

"I will. Don't worry."

* * *

Rogue shot upward, twisting herself into a barrel roll to turn her back to the oncoming fire. She felt bullets tear through the fabric of her pajamas and impact against her skin like hailstones, and in her mind and her ears she heard a cry of astonished pain. _Storm!_

_I'm all right_, Storm told her, gathering her winds underneath herself and shooting straight up into the air, out of range of the guns. _I'm hit, but I can fight._

There wasn't a backup plan for what to do if Storm was hurt. There was nowhere for her to stand down and treat her injuries. And she was needed to keep the air above the mansion clear. She'd fight until she bled to death; she had to.

Rogue pulled herself to a halt and pivoted, shooting back into the range of the guns. _Ah'll keep ya covered, Storm. Just get to work._

_

* * *

_

"Best. Behavior." Scott's voice was flat and final.

"Cross my heart," Gambit told him, suiting action to the word.

"Zat goes double for me," Kurt offered.

"Okay." Scott turned and looked up . . . way up . . . at the granite steps and façade of the Senate office building. "Here we go."

Gambit fell into place at Scott's left shoulder. He knew he wasn't Scott's first choice for backup on this job, but the Professor had insisted. If this went badly, a quiet exit would be needed. Kurt was quiet-exit guy number one, and Gambit was number two. He wasn't sure how quiet of an exit he'd be able to manage without his tools, but there were metal detectors at every legal entrance so he'd just have to do the best he could empty-handed.

"Man," Kurt muttered as they crossed the imposing marble rotunda, "I haven't been this nervous since ze first time I vent out vith Amanda." He stuck one finger into his collar and loosened his already-too-loose tie. "And I don't sink I'm getting kissed at ze end of this, either."

"She kissed you on de first date?" Gambit asked.

Kurt shrugged and grinned, and Gambit could see a little bit of heat rise in his face as he blushed behind his projector.

Gambit chuckled. "_Que vous êtes mingons, vous deux."_

"There." Scott had found the door they needed. A brass plaque at eye level read GRAYDON CREED, I-NY in bold black letters. Scott rapped his knuckles against the door, then turned the handle and eased it open. "Hello?"

"What do you want?" demanded a brisk female voice from within.

Scott let himself into the office. Kurt followed close behind, with Gambit bringing up the rear. "My name's Summers. My friends and I have an appointment with Senator Creed."

The secretary stood up, matching Scott's gaze, and grabbed a file from the rack at the corner of her large oak desk. She flipped it open and glanced down one page. "I don't have any record of an appointment. You'll have to call the Senate offices and schedule a time . . ."

"We did that three weeks ago," Scott insisted. "We called yesterday to confirm."

She slapped the file, still open, onto her desk. "To whom did you speak?"

"I don't know. I didn't ask for a name. We just called the main number, and the operator connected us. It was a man's voice."

"That must have been Jonas. He's the senator's press secretary. He _certainly_ doesn't have the authority to schedule an individual appointment."

Scott's jaw tensed, but when he spoke, his voice was still polite and calm. "It sounds like there was a mix-up. I'm sorry we went through the wrong channels by accident. But if there's any way we could have just a few minutes of the senator's time . . . we'll wait all day if we have to . . ."

"Absolutely impossible. With the Mutant Registration Act being debated on the Senate floor? No, you'll simply have to wait. I can schedule a meeting for next month, when the senator will have more time to deal with local issues."

"Next month vill be too late!" Kurt insisted.

Gambit discreetly leaned over the desk to get a look at the open file. Somehow, he'd expected a U.S. senator's schedule to be more complex, but the document didn't look much more complicated than a page out of his study planner. Just the hours of the day running down the left edge of the page, with tasks and meetings written in next to them.

"_Mais c'est quoi, ça_?" he demanded, pointing at the paper.

The secretary jumped like he'd fired a starter pistol right behind her head, letting out a little scream as she whipped around to face him. Several strands of light blond hair came loose from her carefully pinned up-do and dropped across her face.

"Dey's nothing' scheduled 'till four." Gambit tapped the open time slot. "He's sittin' in dat office doin' nothin' right dis very second."

"Don't touch that!" she snapped, grabbing the file away from him with one hand and combing her disorganized hair back with the other.

"What's going on?" asked a man's voice from the door at the far end of the office.

Scott shot Gambit a quick glare. "Don't _sneak_," he hissed, sparing a glance for the now disheveled and flustered secretary.

"I wasn't," Gambit grumbled, sulking.

The door swung open, framing the man they'd come to see. Senator Graydon Creed was tall and well-built . . . most of him so thin as to be almost lanky, but his shoulders broad and his arms, revealed by rolled-up sleeves, surprisingly well-muscled. His hair was dark blond, and so, probably, would his beard be . . . he was sporting the start of a five o'clock shadow, though it was only three in the afternoon.

"Senator Creed!" The secretary stuffed her file back into its rack and and hurried around her desk towards him, tugging on the hem of her cream blazer so she didn't look quite so rumpled or frantic and shooting an annoyed, confused glare at Gambit. "These people showed up without an appointment, and—"

"Senator Creed," Scott cut in. Gambit had to give him points; that was the first time he'd ever heard Scott interrupt a woman. "My name's Scott Summers." He extended a hand, which the senator took reflexively. "We wanted to talk to you for just a few minutes about the Mutant Registration Act. We're, um . . . we're here on behalf of the Xavier Institute."

"Xavier Institute," Creed repeated.

"That's right."

"_Charles_ Xavier?"

"Yes, Senator. He's our teacher."

"You're mutants?" Creed dropped Scott's hand.

Scott took a split second to decide what to do with his hand, now hanging in the air with nowhere to go. He settled for lowering it to his side again. "Yes, sir. We just wanted to talk to you, for a few minutes. That's all."

"You came here, into the Senate offices, to threaten a United States senator—"

"No, sir . . ."

". . . but I do _not_ respond to intimidation, and I'll thank you to leave these premises immediately, if you don't want me to call security and have you arrested."

"We're not here to threaten, Senator. We just wanted to talk, to ask some questions. We don't have weapons—"

"You _are _weapons."

"We're college students."

"Emily, call security."

Scott opened his mouth, then closed it again. He shot quick glances, first at Kurt, then at Gambit, searching for a better idea. Kurt's slightly crouched posture screamed _Let's just get out, fast_. Gambit raised an eyebrow and gave a little nod towards the senator, suggesting that if Scott wanted this gentleman roughed up, Gambit would be pleased to make that happen.

He could see by the set of Scott's mouth that the roughing-up plan had its appeal, but in the end, Kurt's idea won out.

"I'm sorry we took up your time," Scott apologized, nodding his head respectfully to the senator. "We'll leave." He turned to the door, giving a little flick with his hand to order Gambit and Kurt out with him.

"Well," Kurt sighed as soon as they were out on the street again, "sere vent ze 'just talk reasonably vit zem and it'll all blow over' plan. Vhat a jerk. I'm never voting for him."

"Which is gonna be a big headache for him when he runs for office in Germany," deadpanned Gambit.

"The professor's not going to be happy." Scott combed his fingers through his carefully-arranged hair.

"Nope." Gambit flashed an inappropriate grin. "But hey, nice legs on dat secretary, _hein_?"

"Didn't notice," Scott answered.

"You better learn to lie better dan dat, or Jean ain't never gonna be fooled." He turned to Kurt. "Blue, _mon gars_, back me up here. Nice legs?"

"I vas too busy vaiting for her to bite my head off. Or yours."

"You two are no fun."

"Let's just go home," Scott sighed.

* * *

French Lesson!

_Que vous êtes mingons, vous deux: _You two are so cute.

_Mais c'est quoi, ça_? So what's this?

_hein: _The French spelling of the interjection "Eh?" or "Huh?"

_Mon gars: _Dude.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

* * *

Gambit launched himself out of bed so fast it seemed to him like he'd jumped a heartbeat _before_ the alarm had gone off. Colossus, too, was on his feet, already armoring up as he barreled through the door. Gambit had to grab his coat on the way out, which slowed him down.

The hallway was packed with running X-Men. Gambit dodged around Berserker, hopped onto the railing of the landing, and jumped down into the foyer. He landed in a crouch, letting his legs and spine absorb the shock of the impact.

He gritted his teeth and forced down the telepathic shields that protected his mind. They were his best, his strongest defense, but he needed to be hooked into the communications network to hear Cyclops's orders.

_Colossus, check the dining room. Gambit, kitchen. Wolverine, library. I'll get the Professor's office. Regroup in the foyer when you're done._

_Copy that,_ Colossus answered.

_Right wit' you, Boss,_ Gambit added.

_Check_, said Wolverine.

Gambit turned and headed for the kitchen.

_They breached the house. I can smell 'em,_ Wolverine informed them. _Watch yourselves._

The lights were all out in the kitchen. The DEFCON barriers across the windows cut off any light from the sky outside. But Gambit could see more than just light: he could see heat, and radiation, and energy. The refrigerator, microwave, and range all glowed gently in the darkness. And the soldier crouched behind the table showed up like a neon sign.

Gambit charged a card and flicked it across the kitchen tabletop, trailing lurid orange fire. The soldier jumped from his cover and spattered the wall behind Gambit with a wide spray of bullets. Gambit dropped to the floor and covered his head as his card went off.

When he raised his head again, he reported, _I have one down an' de kitchen is secure._

_Two down,_ Colossus echoed. _Dining room secure._

The entire house trembled underfoot, and heat flashed through the walls.

_They're breachin' the library,_ Wolverine snarled.

They all heard Scott's command-voice crack into the outcry of an overwhelmed college student. _Oh, crap_. But it only lasted a heartbeat. Before Gambit had even had time to draw a breath, the order rang in his head: _We're backing you up. Hold on._

_

* * *

_

Logan waited until all the kids were safely off to school, and not likely to return unexpectedly for forgotten backpacks, car keys, cell phones, or other excuses to avoid education, before he picked up the handset of the kitchen phone.

The man he was calling recognized the house's number. "Logan."

"Nick," Logan answered. "I need to cash in on some of those favors you owe me."

There followed one of those silences that was called 'pregnant' in old books as Nick Fury steeled himself for the kind of favor he could expect the Wolverine to demand. "Talk," he ordered at last.

"I don't give a curse what they're up to in Washington, but here in New York I got a couple dozen kids waking up with nightmares if we let 'em watch the news before they go to bed. I just need a heads-up from you. How far is this Creed guy planning to take this? Is he just trying to prove a point, or is this Registration Act just a paper foundation for an extermination order?"

"You know I don't mess with the politicians," Nick answered flatly. "I just take my orders."

"What I know is that you don't mess with the politicians unless you're pretty sure you won't get caught. And I'm not asking you to mess with anything. I just need to know if they're gearing up the military to move on the mutant population. I need to be ready. After everything I've done for you—"

"Not willingly."

"Not important. You are getting off easy with a little request like this. All I want to do is keep my kids safe. If I need to get 'em out, I need to know, _now_."

There was no sigh of resignation, no sound through the line that would indicate Fury giving in. "All right, Logan. Yes, I have what you need to know. And I'll give it to you. You just tell me one thing first."

"The spy plane, Mystique . . . after all this, you're still trying to negotiate with me?"

"This is not a negotiation. It's an ultimatum. You tell me where I can find Project X-23, and I'll tell you everything you've asked for."

This time it was Logan's turn to pause. "_What?" _he snarled, in the tone of voice that made lesser men buckle and do as they were told. Unfortunately for him, Fury was not one of these.

_ "_One kid for fifteen. It's a good bargain for you."

"You're still beating that dead horse? Did your super-high-tech info-gathering network miss the big fireball that HYDRA went up in?"

"No, we saw it. It was a nice piece of work. But that kind of crash wouldn't have killed you, so it's a fair bet it didn't kill her. Of course, that's just an educated guess. You'd know better than we would."

He was fishing for information. Logan took a split-second to weigh the likely advantages of lying versus telling the truth. In the end, he chose the latter; it wasn't more than Nick already knew, or mostly knew. "Yeah. She got out. I saw her. But that was the last time I laid eyes on her. After that day, you know more than I do, probably."

"We know that if Creed has got it into his head to round up mutants, then SHIELD had better be sure that _we_ get hold of X-23 before _he_ does. And we know that in the last nine months there have been seven different strikes at facilities all over the world, looking for data on _you_. One-man strikes, same M.O., and one with a meat-fork puncture mark in the exterior wall of the building. She's active, and she's after you, Logan. And I know it."

"If she is after me, she's takin' a stupid way of doing it. She knows where I sleep."

"But do you know where _she _sleeps?"

"And if I did, why should I tell you? _You're _the one who owes _me_, remember."

"And I'd be glad to make up that debt, any other time, when the stakes aren't so high. But I can't afford to be a gentleman on this one. This is hardball. You tell me where she is, and I'll tell you everything you want to know. You really think that one science project gone wrong is more important than your students? Your children_?_"

"She's a child, too."

"Who would be safe at SHIELD. But if what's in the works goes through, the odds are very slim that all of your kids will be making it to their next birthdays. Some of those high schoolers are gonna die if you don't give me what I want, and it won't be my fault, Logan; it'll be yours."

Logan's grip tightened around the phone, as though it were closing around Nick's throat. "If one of those high schoolers dies, Nick Fury, you're next. I don't know where she is, and if I did, I wouldn't tell you. We're done."

"Logan, wait—"

He took the phone away from his ear, hit the OFF button with his thumb, and dropped it on the floor. The back panel was jarred off by the impact, and the battery flew out and skittered under the refrigerator. Logan left it there.

_Logan?_ Charles inquired inside his head. He'd heard the clatter. _What did you find out? Will SHIELD help us?_

Logan took a second to scrub the stress off of his face. _That's a big, fat NO, Chuck_, he thought back. _We're on our own._

And then he sat down at the kitchen table and spent a half hour pondering whether he'd just screwed them all over again.

* * *

The invaders had blown a hole in the shields over the library windows. It wasn't very big; it took tough stuff to breach a Xavier lockdown. But it was enough to let soldiers in, and in they came.

When Gambit made it in, there were already four bodies on the floor, and the room reeked of bitter, salty gunpowder and fresh blood. One of the bookcases was knocked over. The coffee table was broken into fragments. The sofas gave out little coughs of stuffing as bullets tore holes through the brocade upholstery.

This was their library. Their _library_. They did homework here, and sat around the fireplace on cold afternoons, and played board games on Sundays. There was a strict, life-or-death rule against bringing in cherry kool-aid, for fear that the red dye would stain the cream-colored carpet.

Good thing they weren't coming back here, because Gambit couldn't stand the thought of seeing this violated room by the light of day. There was no way this would ever be a safe place again.

Cyclops's red beams sliced through the room, accurate as sniper's bullets, knocking soldiers against the walls and scattering them on the floor. The second they hit the carpet, Wolverine was on them, claws flying. The gleaming blades weren't bluffing weapons tonight, or tools for opening soda cans on which the tabs had broken off. Wolverine held death in both his fists, and dispensed it without hesitation and without mercy. Blood coated his arms to the elbows, drenched his t-shirt, and splattered across his face.

Across the telepathic network, Gambit felt Cyclops hesitate. Logan didn't pause, but a thought flashed to them all: Rogue, Jean, and Kitty, captured by these invaders, locked up in secure government labs, tortured and vivisected, violated and murdered, their bodies cremated and their ashes dumped into the trash. _Think about our girls._

_Our girls._ Gambit charged a spread of cards and dove into the fight.

* * *

Hank: "They can't possibly pass this legislation."

Professor X: "But if they do—"

Hank: "They won't. There's no way. Not in the United States of America."

Logan: "They said the same thing about the magnificent Third Reich."

Professor X: "_If_ they do, we need to have a plan of action in place. Will we keep the school open?"

Storm: "We have to. For Scott, Rogue, and Gambit, at least. They don't have anywhere else to go."

Professor X: "But what about all the other students? Should we send them home? They'll certainly be less conspicuous in their own homes, but they'll also be significantly less defended."

Storm: "We're a team. We have to stick together, as much as we can. We can't stop the parents from ordering them home, but I think the more X-Men we have here, the safer we're all going to be."

Logan: "Are we talking about military action here? Defending the house? What's our last resort?"

Storm: "Please, Logan, don't be dramatic."

Logan: "I'm not being dramatic, I'm being practical. If we're gonna treat the house as a fortress under siege, we need to plan for that, and if we're gonna try to get the team out of the country, we need to plan for that, too."

Hank: "Do you really think they'll come after us in force just to make us register in some database, when we're already publicly known mutants? Surely if we re-assert our peaceful intentions, the worst they could do would be to arrest us."

Logan: "You're cute when you're naïve. I don't know what they plan to do. But I know I'm not lettin' 'em tag me."

Storm: "We can't let them register us. We are the most well-known mutants in the world. If we submit to this, then we are giving our consent to all the injustice and all the persecution that will inevitably follow. Someone has to make a stand, and we are the only ones who can."

Hank: "It won't pass. It can't."

Professor X: "Let's hope and pray that you're right. But in the meantime, Logan, you and I need to draw up a plan for an emergency evacuation of the Institute. Just in case."

The students, everyone from Scott to Jamie, sat in silence in Jean's bedroom. It was directly above Professor Xavier's office, and thus the most convenient place to use Gambit's limited-range eavesdropping gear. Having Kitty phase the receiver through most of the floor had helped a lot.

They were all thinking it, but Bobby was the first to say it. "Did that sound really bad to anybody else?"

* * *

"Go, go, go, come on!"

Bobby Drake didn't have any official leadership position in the X-Men. He was more than happy to leave the boring, stressful stuff to Scott. But it was an understanding, an unspoken rule, that if the younger students had a student body president, he was it.

And that was why he stopped at the corner of the hallway that hooked around the Danger Room and counted off his teammates as they sprinted by. Roberto, Amara, Sam, Jamie, Ray. Five. Everyone accounted for.

Bobby threw himself after them, bare feet giving him great traction on the cold smooth floor. Only two more corners to the hangar. And then they were out and away.

He didn't hear the hiss of the silenced weapon, but he didn't need to. The explosion of burning pain in the left side of his back was enough.

He was too old to scream when startled, but somehow the noise came out anyway as he slammed face-first into the floor.

_Bobby?_

_Bobby?_

_Iceman!_

Choking on pain and the possibility that he might puke, Bobby craned his head around. Red sticky awful nastiness was oozing across the floor under him. Around the corner, he caught a glimpse of black: the uniformed sniper that had hit him, crouched behind the shelter of the wall.

He tasted salt; blood was welling into his mouth. _Sniper! Sniper, sniper!_

_Hold on, we're coming!_ Amara yelled back.

_NO!_ Panic and pain and disgust were whiting out his brain, but the most important thoughts were standing out crystal-clear. _He's waiting for you! I'm bait! That's why he hasn't shot me twice . . ._

_We're not leaving you here, moron,_ Ray snapped.

Bobby dug his toes into the floor and grabbed the surface in front of him with his sweaty, sticky palms and forearms. Blood was bubbling out of his nostrils as he breathed. If he could just belly-crawl around the corner, out of the sniper's range . . . He felt himself inch forward, smearing the blood across his abdomen. Too slow. He'd never have the strength to make it the ten feet to safety. Not in time.

A flush of cold shot through his whole body—not like icing up, not the familiar and comfortable chill of his own powers. This was the black chill of a risk-loving teenage boy who'd just realized that he was, this very morning, going to die.

* * *

"It's very important that all of you listen carefully to everything I'm about to tell you. If we have to use this plan, it needs to run like clockwork. The goal is to safely evacuate the mansion and move the entire team to Muir Island. That means that each one of you will have a job to do, and your teammates will be counting on you to accomplish it. Your lives are in one another's hands. There will be no grandstanding, no heroics, no improvisation; you must do your jobs and get out. Am I understood?"

Each of the X-Men nodded his or her consent. Even Bobby knew better than to complain right now.

"All right. If the house is breached, here's what will happen. First, when the sensors are tripped, the mansion will go into automatic DEFCON-4 lockdown. You've all seen it, I believe, except for perhaps Gambit and Colossus."

"I know it," Gambit told him.

"The house will be completely sealed. The only way in or out will be the main hangar. But before the barriers come down, Rogue and Storm need to be outside. You two will be the advance guard. It will be your job to keep any attacking aircraft at bay until both our planes are safely over international waters. Once there, we're under the jurisdiction of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and any actions against us will be an act of aggression against the U.N."

"Unless the U.N. declares us _hostis humani generis_, of course," Hank observed, "but they generally reserve that for torturers. Still, you never know."

Professor Xavier raised an eyebrow, and Hank closed his mouth and stopped being flippant.

"Cyclops, Wolverine, Gambit and Colossus, you four will be the rear guard. You're our strongest mêlée fighters. Your task is to keep back any invasion of the house until the X-Jet is safely in the air. Once it's clear, you'll fall back to the secondary hangar and leave in Velocity."

The four men nodded. They'd all seen bloody combat before, and knew that what they'd been called upon to do was no privilege. But they also knew that they had the best chance of holding back an assault.

"Hank."

"Yes, sir."

"Your task will be to cover our tracks behind us. Cerebro, the Danger Room, and the infirmary all have self-destructs rigged into them. You'll need to activate the countdowns, then rendezvous with the rear guard. We have backup copies of all the important data in the X-Jet, so don't try to salvage anything. Just get out."

"Yes, sir."

"Nightcrawler, I have a particular service to ask of you. I need you to get me to the X-Jet. I won't be able to make it there as quickly as the rest of you."

Kurt nodded. "You can count on me, Professor."

"Thank you. Jean and Shadowcat, you two will be our pilots. Jean will have the X-Jet, and Kitty will take Velocity. You'll both fly the second everyone who's supposed to be on board is there. If there are complications . . . the final decision of when to fly is yours. Use your judgment. Kitty, DEFCON-4 will lock down the hangar doors, so you'll have to phase the helicopter through. Can you do that?"

Kitty nodded. "I think so."

"Now, for you younger students. Your job is to get yourselves onto the X-Jet. Every second you delay will expose the advance guard and rear guard to greater danger. The plane needs to fly and you need to be on board. Am I understood?"

He made eye contact with each of the younger X-Men in turn, and held their gaze until they'd nodded and murmured their assent.

"While all of this is going on, I ll be maintaining telepathic communications across the entire team. Try not to use it unless you need to; the fewer people we have thinking at one another, the easier it will be for everyone. Now, once the X-Jet is airborne, Storm will escort it as far as the international boundary and then come inside. Rogue, you'll stay with Velocity until it, too, is clear, then catch up with the X-Jet. If, heaven willing, the helicopter is fully loaded, there won't be a seat for you in it."

Rogue nodded, her eyes straying across the group to linger on Logan, Hank, Scott, Piotr, and Remy. Three of them had been her teachers. All of them were her friends. And one had given her the ring she wore under her left glove. _If, heaven willing, the helicopter is fully loaded . . ._

She strayed back to Remy's eyes, and stayed there. They were fierce and bright as they bored into hers, but they made her no promises.

"We'll fly straight to Muir Island, and regroup there. There are coordinates in both aircraft. We'll be running drills of the whole evacuation plan over the next few weeks, so be prepared."

* * *

Author's Notes:

I wanted to post for Mardi Gras, but I got a little sidetracked making cajun food. Sorry. Happy Late Mardi Gras, everybody!

No French today, but here's some Latin . . .

_hostis humani generis: _"Enemy of mankind." A legal term, originally used for pirates, indicating that a criminal could be tried in any country by that country's own laws, whether his/her crime had been against that country or not.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

* * *

_I'm gonna die right here on the floor in the basement . . ._

_Hold on, _Sam ordered Bobby._ I'm pickin' ya up._

_No, Stupid, you'd have to stop to pick me up, and he can shoot you if you're not moving._

_I'm quick._

_He's a SNIPER! It's his JOB to be quicker than you!_

_I'll cover you. _Under stress, Jamie's mental voice cracked just like his physical one.

_Naw, Jamie, I got this. Get to the plane!_

_I am!_

Bobby gave himself another shove. Nine feet to go.

Jamie came running around the corner, his babyish face white and determined. There was a hissing, zipping sound, and Jamie yelled . . . and vanished.

Another Jamie rounded the corner. And another. And another. Bullets flew, mowing them down almost as fast as they appeared, but Jamie could make copies faster than the sniper could aim and fire.

Heavier footsteps landed next to Bobby's head. Sam straddled him, grabbed him under the arms and around the chest . . . Bobby screamed bloody murder; he hadn't realized a billion deaths all together could hurt this bad . . . and launched himself like a rocket sled. He rebounded off the walls to make the turns without slowing down, twisting so he hit the metal surfaces with his upper back and the back of his head and not slowing down even a little bit as he aimed for the hatch of the plane.

* * *

Christmas afternoon. The normally-crowded house held only four: Professor Xavier, Hank, Gambit, and Rogue. Everyone else was home over the holiday—even Scott, who'd been invited to spend the vacation at Jean's house. And Logan was . . . somewhere. No one really knew where he went on Christmas.

In the rec room, _Casablanca_ was playing on the big tv. Christmas-afternoon old movies were a McCoy family tradition that had been adopted by the Xavier household. Hank was glued to the screen, unashamedly enjoying himself though he could recite every line of the film already. On the floor, Rogue and Gambit sorted through a pile of CDs, loading music onto their new mp3 players with one of the house's laptop computers. Professor Xavier was taking phone calls.

No one really knew how this tradition had started up, or how it had become so pervasive. But everyone observed it, X-Men and former team members alike. Everyone called in to wish Professor Xavier a merry Christmas. So far, Kurt, Piotr, Tabby, Rahne, Kitty, and Storm had paid their respects, and many more would do likewise before the sun went down.

When the phone rang again, the caller i.d. registered Jean's parents' house. Hank paused the DVD, and the Professor put the call on speaker, knowing the students would want to exchange greetings as well. "Hello?"

"Merry Christmas, Professor Xavier!" Jean's bright, clear voice rang cheerfully through the room. Rogue was glad that Logan was still gone; the voice stung at the echoes of his consciousness in the back of her brain.

"Merry Christmas, Jean," Professor Xavier answered, smiling. "How is your holiday going?"

"Fantastic. We just got in from sledding, and dinner's almost ready . . . is Gambit cooking again over there?"

"It was either him or me," Hank quipped. "Lesser of two evils."

"Y'just jealous," Gambit accused good-naturedly.

"How's Scott doin' with your folks?" Rogue asked.

"He's great. My little sister's kicking his butt at Battleship." Jean's voice went muffled as she moved the receiver away from her mouth. "Scott, I called the house."

There was a crackling shuffle as the phone changed hands, and then Scott's voice emerged into the room. "Professor?"

"Merry Christmas, Scott!" Rogue cut in before anyone else could speak up. Scott was like a brother to her, her first and most constant friend since she'd come into the X-Men; the first holiday greeting belonged to her alone.

"Merry Christmas!" Scott chimed back. "What're you guys doing over there?"

"Watchin' movies and eatin' candy 'till we puke."

"Sounds like paradise."

"Well, Ah wanted to do sledding, too, but Gambit's got his whole 'Ah don't do snow' thing, so Ah'm just gonna have to wait 'till y'all get home."

"It's a date."

Rogue grinned, responding unconsciously to the smile she could hear in his voice.

"Rogue—" Scott added. "I love you. You're one of the best things that ever happened to the X-Men. Glad you joined. It wouldn't be the same without you, not by a long shot."

Rogue's grin got wider. She glanced at Gambit, expecting to see a scowl on his face. There was one, but it was just a joke; the left corner of his mouth was fighting to twist up into a smile. Homeless Rogue, orphan Rogue, foster-kid, prickly-as-a-hedgehog, don't-touch-me Rogue, was spending her Christmas surrounded by the abiding and unconditional love of her very own family. She was glowing, and she knew it; she could see it in her reflection gleaming in his eyes.

"Thanks, Scott. Thanks for everything. Seriously, Ah owe you everything. Wouldn't be an X-Man without you."

"Hey . . . is Gambit there, too?"

"_Ouais_," Gambit responded. "What's de orders, Fearless Leader?"

"No orders. Just . . . all that just goes for you, too. Glad you're on the team, Remy."

Rogue's eyes shot to Gambit's face, almost alarmed now. No one at the Institute, except herself, had ever called him Remy. Gambit, Cajun, Gumbo, Red-Eye, Swamp Rat . . . he responded to all these with perfect equanimity. But his Christian name had always been off-limits.

He blinked, startled, then let the fake-scowl relax into the slightest hint of a smile. "Thanks, Scott. Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas."

There were jumbled voices in the background, and Scott announced, "Dinner's ready. Talk to you guys later, okay?"

"Deal."

"See ya after vacation."

"Behave yourself."

"Merry Christmas, Scott! Merry Christmas, Jean!"

"Bye!"

The call ended with a soft click.

Hank settled back into his recliner, picking up the remote and freeing the pause on the DVD. "Can we make it though to the end before the next call? This isn't a piece of cinema that should be done in chunks."

The heavy thrum of the garage door opener came buzzing through the carpets. Logan was home. Rogue could hear the squeak of the door as he walked through it into the kitchen, the clatter of his keys on the counter, the thuds of his boots on the tile floor.

"Logan, you're just in time!" Hank called over his shoulder. "Last ten minutes of _Casablanca_."

"Gotta shower," Logan's voice echoed back.

"We'll pause it and wait for you."

"Don't."

"It's an American classic!"

"Not an American," Logan reminded him. There was another slammed door from somewhere in the house, and silence echoed in its wake.

"No appreciation for great cinema," Hank muttered, despairing. "He's hopeless."

The phone rang again. Professor Xavier picked it up, frowning thoughtfully as he read the caller i.d. "Unknown number," he murmured, pressing 'Talk' and bringing the handset to his ear. "Hello?"

"Merry Christmas, Charles," said a man's voice, loud and deep enough that all four of them heard it. They also heard the click immediately following as the call cut off.

* * *

_Don't panic, don't panic, don't panic._ Jean strapped her harness across her chest and started up the pre-flight. _Stay calm. We're getting out of here. Just do your job._

She spared a glance for the Professor in the co-pilot's seat, being buckled in by Kurt. His eyes were glassy with concentration. Holding open a seventeen-mind communication net left very little energy for anything else. Jean was on her own.

There was a rush of displaced air through the plane, and she reached out telekinetically just in time to catch Sam before he smashed through the windshield. He had Bobby in his arms, but the Iceman's mischievous face was pale with pain, and most of the rest of him was red-brown. He'd been shot through the side.

"Ray, get the first aid kit!" Amara ordered. She reached for her seat belt.

"No, not yet!" Jean ordered. Her hands were flying over the controls, closing the loading hatch and opening the hangar doors. "Stay put. We're taking off. Bobby, try to ice up." She reached behind herself, pinning Bobby to the floor of the plane and doing what she could to hold back the bleeding. "Hold on, you guys!"

He's bleeding!" Ray protested.

"We've got to get out of here or we're all going to die. Just hold on."

_We're flying,_ she announced to Storm and Rogue. _Get out of the way._

_Good luck,_ Rogue thought back at her.

Jean could see silver-gray sleet coming down in sheets, and lighting spiking across the sky. She gunned the engine and flung the plane forward, accelerating too hard, trying not to wince as Bobby cried out in pain.

_Just get in the air. Just go. Don't look back._

_

* * *

_

Logan was hunting.

Not hunting for food, or for targets. Just practice-hunting. Being-outside-hunting. Hunting for clarity.

He'd been tracking a doe for three hours, following her through the heavy New England woods and across the fields and freeways of the county. When she stopped to graze, he stalked her, moving in impossible silence until he was close enough to touch her. He laid one hand against her side and held it there for one long, breathless, second, before she finally startled and leaped away.

Logan, satisfied, stood up from his crouch and turned to walk back home.

It was nearly dawn when he made it back onto the grounds. He was tired, but it was a good, whole sort of tired. It was Sunday, so there was no training, no school . . . nothing to keep him from just going to bed, strange though the hour was.

Then he crossed a scent he didn't know.

There were three of them, all men. Their scent trail wound across the grounds, carefully avoiding the laser triggers that would activate the house's defense grid. It stopped at the kitchen door. The three invaders had halted there and then retraced their steps.

Logan went inside and woke up Hank.

"C'mere. I need a second opinion on something."

With a yawn that showed all of his deadly teeth, Hank rolled out of bed and padded behind Logan back to the kitchen. "Did you even go to sleep at all last night?"

"Not really." Logan opened the back door and pointed to the scent trail. "Smell that."

Hank smelled. His sense of smell wasn't as acute as Logan's, and he wasn't as experienced in tracking, but he was the only person in the house who could even begin to understand what Logan was talking about.

"Three men," he muttered. "How did they come so close to the house?"

"They were good. Very, very good. Dodged every sensor. What I want to know is why they came so far, then stopped right here."

Hank raised himself up to his full height, which was a great deal taller than Logan's, and sniffed the air. "One of them touched the top of the door frame." He ran his fingers across the stonework that framed the door. "Wait a minute. What's this?"

Logan looked at it, then snarled. "I'll go wake up the swamp rat."

He did this by yanking Gambit's pillow out from under his head and hitting him with it. "What's the ace-and-X thing you blew in the door frame?"

Gambit groaned and pulled the blankets up over his head. "Seventh commandment," he muttered belligerently.

"'Thou shalt not commit adultery'?" Hank asked.

Gambit peeked his head out. His eyes were bleary and only half-open. "What's de one about not wakin' people up on Sunday?"

"Four."

"_Ouais_, dat one."

Logan yanked his blankets off him, watching the thief flinch and curl up like a disturbed potato bug. "Somebody came onto the grounds last night, but they stopped short of breakin' into the house when they saw that mark. What is it?"

Remy groaned as he reluctantly pulled himself into a sitting position. "It's my sign. My logo. I put it over de door to put de house under my professional protection." He blinked a few times and combed his long, disheveled hair back off his face.

"Protection from who?"

"Whom," Hank corrected.

"Other Guild T'ieves. No Guild T'ief would dare break a house dat's got a Master's sign on it."

"In that case, you mind speculating on what Guild Thieves were doing in our backyard last night?"

This finally seemed to interest Gambit more than the prospect of going back to bed. "De Guild was here?" He swung his feet onto the floor and grabbed for his coat. "Show me."

* * *

Corporal Greg Mangum hadn't wanted this assignment. He wasn't interested in ethical dilemmas about who had which rights to what. That's why he'd joined the Marines. There were never any decisions to make, never any questions to ask. You did what you were told. The right and wrong of it was on your commander's head, not yours.

But it was hard to absolve himself of responsibility as he read over the mission briefs. Things kept jumping out at him: ages of fourteen, sixteen, nineteen, names like _Summers_ and _Monroe_, notes like _state basketball championships_ and _3.4 GPA_. These were kids. Middle-class, American high school kids. He'd seen soldiers that young in Afghanistan, but somehow that was different. Maybe it shouldn't be . . . maybe he shouldn't feel more concerned about a white kid from upstate New York than a brown-skinned kid from the Kumar province . . . but that was how he felt.

But feelings didn't matter in the Marines. Orders did. And his orders were to use lethal force. These were mutants, he'd been told. He couldn't afford to be merciful. They didn't have the firepower; they didn't have the time.

So he shoved his feelings to the back of his mind as he threw himself forward into the gap the ballistics guys had blown in the house's armor.

What he saw inside, he never forgot.

There were only four of them . . . only _four_! Against dozens of the best troops the U.S. Military had to offer! . . . but each one was a nightmare in his own right. There was a soldier, upright and grim, as detached and professional as Greg wished he could be . . . a tank in human form, his limbs gleaming metal and his blank white eyes devoid of humanity . . . a snarling animal with deadly claws soaked in blood . . . and a red-eyed demon straight from Hell that trailed flames from its fingertips.

The sight of them was enough to stop him in his tracks. And his split-second hesitation was enough time for the metal one to crack his head against the wall.

He woke up in a hospital bed a week later. He was one of the lucky ones.

* * *

"Remy LeBeau to see the Guildmaster," the receptionist announced, ushering Gambit into the Guildmaster's large and well-appointed office.

The man that stood up from behind the large and intimidating oak desk was a stranger to him. Remy had only met Guildmaster Wheeler once, when he'd presided at Remy's advancement to the rank of Master, but he'd made a point of remembering the face of the man in whose territory he was living. He'd never seen the person who greeted him now.

"Came t'speak to de guildmaster," Remy clarified.

"Not possible," said the man behind the desk. "He's out of town on business. You'll have to make do with me." He gestured to a chair, indicating that Remy should sit in it.

Remy didn't. Instead, he asked, "And just who'm I makin' do wid?"

"Nathan Archibald," announced the other flatly. "I'm Guildmaster Wheeler's second, and I'm in charge until he gets back." He nodded to the chair again, and Remy sat.

After a moment of silence that dragged on for a peculiarly long stretch, Remy opened with "I assume y'know who I am."

"You assume right." Archibald settled back into the Guildmaster's chair. "So what is it that you want?"

"I come t'look into de New York Guild's sudden lack'a good manners," Remy retorted. "Maybe it's just a southern thing, but where I come from, when a guild accidentally takes a job on somethin' protected by a Master T'ief, dey let de Master T'ief know about it. Professional courtesy."

"What are you implying?" Archibald shot back.

"Well, if implications is to fancy for ya, lemme lay it out flat. Guild t'ieves tried t'move on my house Sunday mornin'. Nobody else would'a turned back when dey saw de house was under a master's mark. If it was some other guild, dey would'a let New York know before pullin' a job in dey territory. So I wanna know who ordered de job on my house, an' why ain't nobody called to tell me about it."

Archibald lounged back in the chair, too deliberately, too self-consciously; if it had really been his own chair, his posture would have been less forced. "You weren't called, LeBeau, because I didn't consider this guild's confidential contracts to be any of your business. I know who you are . . . the out-on-his-ear second son of one of the oldest and most respected thieving families in the U.S. The upstart kid who's got the nerve to parade in here, claiming the privileges of a title he got through a loophole and daddy's influence. Those of us who worked years to become masters are understandably a little annoyed at being expected to kowtow to a twenty-something who thinks that six months of party tricks puts him in a position to be demanding anything from the guilds."

Gambit took a deep breath through his nose, held it, and let it out slowly. Yeah, the guy was pushing his buttons, and doing it well. Yeah, Rogue would probably have broken his neck already. But he'd learned from experts . . . Wolverine and Magneto, primarily . . . the value of keeping your cool and walking away with the last laugh.

He stood up. He was tall, and knew how to make the most of it, leaning forward over the desk. "Well, monsieur. Dat's quite de opinion you got dere. But inasmuch as y'can't cut out a Mark wid a sharp tongue, an'inasmuch as yo'years of hard, butt-bustin' work ain't put you in charge of dis or any other guild, I'll thank you t'keep yo'opinions to you'self. Now unless you want me reportin' you to your guildmaster fo' underminin' his decisions and failin' to respect the set lines of authority, you'll tell me what I came here t'find out, and while y'do it, you'll be addressin' me as _Master LeBeau_."

Archibald stood, too. Remy had two inches on him. Archibald was older and could pull rank but Remy knew exactly what he was entitled to by virtue of his mark, and no temporary replacement guildmaster had the authority to deny him any of it.

Archibald broke first. It was inevitable.

"The job on your home," he informed Remy, "was ordered and paid for by Senator Graydon Creed."

Crap. Team Leadership was not going to be happy about that. "What was de target?"

"It was a high-security job. The team had sealed instructions, not to be opened until they were inside the house. When they were unable to complete the job, the instructions were returned."

Dramatic, but not an uncommon practice, provided someone was willing to pay for that level of privacy. Didn't matter. There was enough inside the mansion that Creed might want to get his hands on. The guilds didn't do kidnapping, which was a small comfort . . . but the senator was breathing down their necks, and he was doing it outside the bonds of the law. If he'd paid for the Guild, what else was he willing to do?

"Anything else . . . _Master_ LeBeau?" Archibald asked, his voice twisted with sarcasm.

"Yes, actually. I got some documents I need made up. I'd thank you for the name and number of somewhere I could go for good, quality U.S. passports."

* * *

Author's Notes:

Only one French word in this chapter, which is _ouais, _'yeah.'

I know, I know, not a lot of forward progress in this chapter . . . I swear I'll update again quickly, and that this next chapter will wrap up the jumping around and bring us back into linear time. Cross my heart. Y'all have the patience of saints.

Seri


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

* * *

_We got fighters incoming. Jean, look alive._

_Let's hope, _Jean answered back. _Can you keep them off us?_

_Only one way to find out._ Rogue swerved in the air and swung low, aiming to intercept the underbelly of the nearest F-14. She stuck her fists straight out in front of her, preferring to punch the airplane rather than ram it with her head. The sleet stung at her eyes, impeding her vision, but it was hard to miss an aircraft that big.

_Oh, please, oh, please, don't let me kill the pilot._

Her body shot through the metal and electronics, the rough edges tearing at her already ragged pajamas. When she was twenty feet above the plane, she turned and looked behind her. The plane was diving for the steely-gray ocean below. In a flare of explosives, the ejection seat shot from the wreck.

Good. She hadn't wanted to fish him out, especially when she could barely see. She spun to follow the second plane, but it was already shooting towards the ground, still sparking from Storm's lightning bolt.

_We're across the boundary, _Jean announced. _The X-Jet is away. Repeat: The X-Jet is safely away._

_Good luck, _Storm thought to Rogue as she shot away in the X-Jet's wake.

_Hank,_ she heard Scott call, _how's it coming?_

_Three minutes and counting. Let's get out of here._

_ Colossus, get that hole closed!_

Non, attends! _My staff! _She saw a flare of lurid pink light from the gap in the library walls. _Got pried outta my hand—_

_ No time; you're gonna get—_

_ Just a—_

_ STAND DOWN!_

Another flare, larger than the first, turned everything for a split-second to rose-tinted daylight. Then the shock wave hit her, sending her spinning in three backwards somersaults and leaving her head aching from the pressure of the explosion crushing down on her eardrums. She'd never seen Gambit do an explosion that big.

_Got it, _Gambit announced. The grim finality in his mental voice assured Rogue that 'got' didn't mean 'retrieved' . . . better to destroy the beloved weapon than to surrender it to the enemy.

There was another explosion on the north side of the house._ Guys, they're breaching the kitchen!_ Rogue called.

_Gambit, block the door._

_Wid what?_

_With the staircase! We'll retreat through the floor._

_Copy._

The whole house shook. Flames shot from the breach in the kitchen window, and red light flickered from the remaining gaps in the library. The scream and crackle of splintering wood was everywhere.

_Kitty, are you ready to fly?_

_Yeah. Just hurry up, you guys._

Rogue tuned out the conversation. Something was happening on the edge of the lawn. She couldn't see a blessed thing . . . where was Gambit's night vision when she needed it? . . . but there was almost certainly a dark cluster of men and machinery. A tank, maybe? They could've brought a tank.

She dove down, trying to get a better view to see if this was something she needed to deal with before Velocity took off. There was a hiss and a roar, and something hit Rogue in the gut.

* * *

"My name is Scott Summers. I speak today as a representative of the students and teachers of the Xavier Institute for the Gifted."

"Good shot of you," Jean observed.

"Guess all Kitty's makeup tips really paid off," Gambit offered.

"Hey, shut up."

"Both of you shut up. Ah'm tryin to listen," Rogue ordered.

"I am a mutant," the Scott on the television screen continued. "So are all of my teammates. We are all U.S. citizens or legal U.S. residents. Many of us are minors. None of us has a criminal record."

"Yo' welcome," Gambit muttered.

"Shhh!"

"We have broken no laws. We are not criminals. We are entitled to the same rights and protections as any other Americans. Mutant Registration is a blatant violation of those rights. It is unconstitutional, unjust, and unconscionable."

"Ooh, 'unconscionable'," Hank repeated, nodding his approval. "Nice."

"Therefore, on behalf of all students and faculty of the Xavier Institute, I would like to announce here and now that not one of us will submit to being registered. Ever. And we offer all our support and solidarity to any mutants who will stand with us in peaceful protest."

Scott's face disappeared as the camera feed returned to the newsroom. "A striking and provocative declaration from the nation's only publicly known mutant organization, in full opposition to the Mutant Registration Act of last Thursday," the anchorman announced. "The newly formed Mutant Registration Bureau has not yet released any comment in response."

"I don't know, Paul," observed the anchorwoman, with an inappropriately perky smile. "If those mutants don't want to register, I sure feel sorry for whoever has to try to make them."

Storm switched off the television. "Well done, Scott."

Scott sighed. "So now we wait and see what they'll do. Maybe we've called their bluff, and maybe we haven't."

"But if they try callin' ours, we'll have a surprise waiting for 'em." Logan cracked the knuckles of both hands, his face grim. "It's about time they learned that X-Men don't bluff."

* * *

Kitty was shaking inside. She was scared to death. But years of training and danger had taught her to save the fear for later. She could hold it back, even though this was almost certainly the most scared she'd ever been in her entire life.

In a clatter of paws and bare feet against metal, the boys all came rushing up the hatch. All of them. Scott was limping, Gambit was bleeding, and Peter had Logan slung over his shoulder, but they were all there.

"Logan . . ."

Logan half groaned and half snarled as Peter dropped him unceremoniously onto the floor. He was slathered in blood from the waist up. "Just go," he hissed, his teeth clenched against the pain.

"Get us in the air, Kitty," Scott ordered. "Hank, see what you can do for him."

"I'm on it, Gold Leader." Hank was already unlocking the cabinet where the medical supplies were stowed.

Kitty closed the hatch and fired up the propeller. _Rogue, we're ready to go. Are we clear?_

There was no answer.

_Rogue?_

_Rogue, answer de girl,_ Gambit ordered, pausing with his hands on his harness but the buckle still unfastened.

_ROGUE!_

Gambit was already lunging for the closing hatch. Peter grabbed him around the chest and flung him back into his seat. "The gunfire is too thick. I'll go."

Logan snarled again, the sound half aggression against the universe and half pain of trying to breathe through a dry and severed throat. _AZA-CHAN, YOU ANSWER ME RIGHT NOW OR I AM COMING UP THERE TO GET YOU!_

_Uuuuuugh . . ._

_Rogue! _Bien fait, chère_. Take it easy. What happened?_

_What WAS that?_ Rogue moaned.

_Show us,_ Scott ordered.

A picture flashed across their minds: the last thing Rogue had seen before she was knocked out.

_Patriots,_ Scott decided. _They brought patriot missiles to strike against a _school_. Rogue, can you take them out, or do you need backup?_

_Ah kin do it,_ Rogue groaned, soreness and exhaustion resonating through her head. _Get the chopper in the air._

"You heard her, Kitty. Go."

"Hang on, Logan," Hank murmured, popping open the case of pre-measured morphine syringes. "Just a few more seconds. Take it easy." He uncapped one of the syringes, stuffed it under the skin of Logan's bare arm, and dispensed the drug. "Here it comes." He grabbed another, then a third, forcing them into Logan's system with reckless abandon.

Kitty took a deep breath and eased Velocity into the air. She had to phase out not just herself, but the whole craft and everyone in it and keep them phased until they were through the hangar doors. Using her powers was all about fighting back that little twinge of panic that told her she would become solid again at exactly the wrong instant. If she freaked out, she would go solid, and they would all die.

They weren't dying tonight. They were living through this. They were getting away. _Come on, Rogue._

_

* * *

_

"So what'd you think?" Gambit inquired. "Advisor or eye candy?"

"Eye candy," said Bobby.

"Eye candy," Kurt agreed.

"Advisor," said Scott.

"You can't just keep guessin' de same thing so eventually you'll get one right, y'know_."_

Jean stopped at the doorway of the den and came inside. "What on earth are you guys doing?"

"Don't look at me. This was Gambit's idea," Scott protested. "I just wanted to watch the Senate session."

"Active participation makes learnin' fun," Gambit quipped, not taking his eyes off the screen as he put his feet up on the coffee table. "_Regarde_. Dey's two kinds of women on dis TV right now . . ."

"This is rapidly getting to be one of those conversations where I just end up hitting you with a lamp."

" . . . advisors an' eye candy. Advisors got education an' experience, and are workin' de behind-de-scenes t'get somethin' done. Good somethin', bad somethin', don't matter. Eye candy, _par contre_, is brought in so yo' enemies get distracted when dey tryin' to negotiate wid you. Standard practice in de higher criminal classes."

"But that's Congress!"

"And?"

Jean hesitated. "Okay, fair enough."

"De eye candy's gotta be dressed up t'look smart so dey ain't quite so obvious, an' de advisors gotta look like eye candy so people look at 'em when dey talkin'. So it's hard to tell 'em apart. Hence de game. Roberto's on fact-checkin'." Gambit leaned his head back to call to Roberto, who was in a chair in the corner with one of the house's laptops on his knees. "_Robert_, _mon gars_, what we got on de brunette in de blue suit?"

"Christina Hilleary," Roberto called back. "Master's in political science, Harvard."

Scott lifted his sunglasses and shot Gambit's feet off the coffee table, where they weren't supposed to be. "I told you so."

"Okay, you win dat one. How 'bout de one wid de glasses, dere wid Senator Graves?"

"Eye candy," said Bobby.

"Eye candy," Ray agreed.

"Definitely," said Kurt.

"You guys are pathetic," Jean announced.

"I would like to state, for the sake of my own reputation, that I am not playing," Piotr announced from the comfy chair in the corner of the room, deliberately not looking up from his sketchbook.

"Yo' concern is noted," Gambit told him. "She's eye candy."

"Yeah," said Scott.

"And the verdict is . . ." Bobby trailed off, leaving room for Roberto to answer.

"Quote, 'image consultant,' unquote," Roberto announced. "Full points for everybody."

The younger boys burst into cheers and applause.

"Okay, my turn," insisted Jamie. "The one with the ponytail, right there on the left side of the screen."

"Jamie Xerox!" Gambit chided, sounding scandalized. "Dat is Senator Preston of Ohio. Have you no respect?" He shook his head. "Kids dese days."

"Blonde in the white suit," said Bobby.

"I'm turning the tv off," Jean threatened.

"You don' like de game, go do somet'in' else," Gambit told her.

"There's nothing else to do. It's January. It's cold, and it's boring, and if I can't entertain myself by watching a movie like I was planning, I will at least entertain myself by driving all of you nuts."

Scott sighed. "Okay, you guys, she's right. We should've quit this an hour ago." He grabbed the remote and switched off the television.

Bobby moaned. "But it's only six o'clock! What're we going to do all night?"

"Monopoly?" suggested Jamie.

"You cheat at Monopoly," Roberto accused.

"I've got an idea," Scott assured them. "Go find Amara and meet me outside."

"If it involves 'outside,' I ain't playin'," Gambit announced.

"Yes, you are," Scott told him.

As it turned out, he did. It was hard to say no to an all-team hot tub party.

They didn't have a hot tub, as such. But they did have an empty pool, Iceman, and Magma. Inside of fifteen minutes (and most of that was devoted to wrestling the pool cover off), the pool was filled with gently steaming water. And five minutes after that, the water was filled with X-Men.

"I knew there was a reason Professor Xavier put you in charge," Bobby observed, bobbing to the surface after a fair-to-middling cannonball into the deep end.

"Thanks, Bobby," Scott sighed. "I appreciate your support."

"Ze man is a genius," Kurt informed everybody. "Look! If I stay out of the water long enough, I get frost on my fur!"

"Freaky," Amara told him. Kurt ported right next to her and wrapped her in a crackling, frost-covered hug, making her scream and squirm as she tried to free herself.

Kitty, with her ponytail holder slowly sliding down to the ends of her hair, dove under the water and surfaced right next to Peter. "Piotr, would you . . ."

Piotr grinned and laced his fingers together. Kitty took hold of his shoulders and put one foot in the stirrup he'd made. "Ready?" he asked.

"Yeah."

"_A'deen, dva, tri!_" He launched her up into the air. Shrieking with delight, Kitty flew over his head and came crashing enthusiastically but gracelessly down into the water.

Gambit laughed freely at them, wiping off the water that had splashed into his face. It was starting to snow again; he mildly suspected that Storm might have had something to do with that. But whatever the source of the sparkling flakes, their effect was magical. The night sky was black and silent, and the pool glowed green-blue from the underwater lights. His teammates' laughter echoed and chimed in the still, icy air. The steam of their breath mingled with the steam of the water, taking form and then dissolving into nothing.

Then a handful of snow hit the back of his neck.

He yelled to wake the dead and dropped straight down into the water. When he surfaced again, sputtering, all the team's laughter was directed at him. As soon as he could breathe again, he joined in whole-heartedly. It was hard not to laugh at the look of triumphant glee on Rogue's face.

"Gotcha good," she announced, dropping out of the air and into the pool.

"Got me good," Gambit agreed. "Gonna getcha back." He leapt through the water at her, snagging her around the waist as she tried to fly out of his reach. Of course she could have pulled away, but she let herself be caught, and kicked with only human strength as he dragged her down into the water.

Under water was a beautiful place. For a few breathless seconds, they let themselves be lost in a tangle of limbs and identities and gently drifting waves of hair. The gentle, soundless roar of the water pressed against their ears, and the world was filled with twisting coils of light bending in response to their movement. For a moment, Gambit almost wished he didn't have to breathe. It would be so peaceful to stay down here for a while, just the two of them, warm and together and safe from all the sufferings and sadness and fear of the world outside.

When they finally surfaced, gasping, they were both quieter. Rogue drew away for a second, letting herself settle back into her own identity, then drifted towards him and let her fingers trace the intricate black Mark on his shoulder. She was toning down her powers, as she'd learned to do in Japan. Gambit had learned the trick through her, and though he wasn't as good at it, he could ease up enough on his own absorption to let her think her own thoughts while she gently caressed the scar.

He couldn't do it for very long. Controlling this power required absolute concentration and absolute calm, which was absolutely impossible for any meaningful length of time when Rogue was this close to him, with her hand on his bare chest, wearing a swimsuit (even if it _was _a one-piece). Thankfully, she didn't hold the tension for very long; she pulled her hand back, freeing him to let his mind wander at will. Which it did.

"Smile!"

A blaze of white light cut through the blue-green shadows. Gambit flinched, shielding his sensitive eyes, and then splashed an armful of water at Jamie, who was standing at the side of the pool with a camera in his hand.

"Hey!" Jamie hollered in protest. "This was a Christmas present from my parents!"

"Then get it away from the pool, dinkus!" Ray told him.

"Leave him alone," Kitty ordered. "I want to see that picture, Jamie."

"It's a good one," Jamie told her, turning the camera so she could see the tiny screen. Everyone swarmed over to look. Bobby iced up a magnifying lens so they could all see without climbing on top of each other.

It _was_ a good picture. Through either luck or extraordinary timing, Jamie had captured everybody's face. Some of them were smiling, some laughing. Bobby was tumbling off Ray's shoulders as Amara and Roberto won at Chicken.

"That's really cool," said Amara. "We should frame it or something. I want to remember that stupid look on Bobby's face forever."

Sam laughed and jumped on Bobby, dunking him underwater.

Kurt's face was pensive as he studied the picture. "Look at us," he murmured. "Ve're so silly. Vhy would anyone ever vant to hurt us?"

The laughter and the splashing died down in response to his question.

Scott put a hand on Kurt's frosted shoulder. "If they knew us, they wouldn't."

* * *

_Come on, Rogue_, Rogue instead to herself, gritting her teeth against fear and pain. She hurt all over, worse than she could remember hurting for a very long time. Breathing hurt. Thinking hurt. Flying hurt. That was the absolute last time she was letting herself get hit with a patriot missile. Never again.

Now she was going to let a patriot missile get hit with her.

She lifted herself into the air, squinting through the sleet to get her bearings. Fortunately, the weather was easing up; Storm was getting out of range.

The launcher was sitting on the front lawn, right on the edge of their training range. It was surrounded by soldiers with guns.

Behind her, she heard the blades of Velocity start slicing through the air. There was no time to debate this. The soldiers would hit the helicopter point-blank as soon as they figured out what was going on. The element of surprise . . . even the surprise of a helicopter melting up through a basketball court . . . would only last for so long.

She dove into the emplacement, seized the launcher in both hands, and pulled back. "How about you shoot at somebody your own size?" she snarled through gritted teeth. The gears underneath it shrieked and crackled as she wrenched them out of place.

"Stand down, mutant!" one of the soldiers ordered.

"Try and make me!" Rogue hollered back. "I bet all the barracks guys'll be real impressed your entire unit got beat by a girl." She shot upwards, where fewer of those darn bullets would hit their marks. The ones that hit her chest _stung_.

Velocity was clear of the basketball court. Rogue swerved above it. Just had to get into the air and out over the water . . .

Except that there was another set of propellers beating someplace, approaching fast. It was a combat helicopter, narrow as a snake, with missiles bristling along its sides. Rogue panted in a couple of deep, painful breaths and dove for it. She could take out a helicopter. No problem. If only her ribs would stop hurting . . . it was getting hard to move her left arm.

With her right one, she grabbed one of the landing bars underneath the helicopter and yanked it off course. It yanked back; the pilot was gutsy, and he was willing to fight her. Helicopters were more troublesome than fighter planes. They could maneuver better. She gave a heave that threatened to pull her arm from its socket and spun the helicopter away from Velocity.

It let a missile fly away.

_LOOK OUT! _Rogue shrieked. There was no way she'd outrun it, no way Kitty could dodge it . . .

A beam of red light shot from the plane and hit the missile in midair. Scott was leaning out of the nose hatch, his hand on his visor control. "Let's go!" he hollered over the roar of the propellers.

Rogue let go of the helicopter, swung over it, and flew straight backwards into the circle of its whirring blades. All four hit her in the back in rapid succession, shattering into pieces, and the chopper fell, smoking, towards the ground.

Velocity's flight engines roared, and the little craft shot forward over the ocean. Rogue followed it. She spared only one glance for the house . . . the Institute, her home, the only place she'd ever been accepted, been loved, been happy . . . then turned and fled.

* * *

Author's Notes:

Upon my life, we're done with flashbacks! And now that all . . . or some . . . of the background is settled, on to the linear plot and What Happens Next . . .

And we have some French notes!

_Non, attends! _No, wait!

_Bien fait:_ Well done; good job.

_Regarde: _Look.

_Par contre: _On the other hand.

_mon gars: _Dude. (I think we already covered this one . . . I'm just being thorough, not trying to insult your intelligence.)

And a little bit of non-French: _A'deen, dva, tri _is 'One, two, three' in Russian. Or as close as I can come without learning to read the Russian alphabet.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

* * *

"Scott?" asked Kitty, her voice a little shaky, as soon as the helicopter was safely over international waters.

"Yeah?"

"Can you fly for a minute? I think . . . I think I need to have a meltdown."

Scott nodded and unbuckled his harness. "I've got it. Take some deep breaths, Kitty. You did great. We're all okay. Here, switch me seats." He took the steering yoke from her. Kitty phased free of her seat belts and stood up, leaning on the control panel to help her keep her balance. Her hands were shaking. The heavy reek of blood in the cabin made it hard to breathe.

Piotr unbuckled his own harness and stood up to put a steadying hand on her shoulder. He was still metal all over; he hadn't yet recovered from the adrenalin rush of the battle, and it was hard for him to change back when he was still so keyed up. But right now, Kitty hardly cared. He was a very solid friend in a dizzying world. She turned and pressed her face against his steel chest, struggling to take deep breaths to prevent the hiccoughs she could feel coming on.

"They came into our house with guns . . ." she choked. "Our _house_ . . ."

"It's all right," Piotr assured her, very carefully wrapping his arms around her. "The house doesn't matter. We're all safe."

"Who said I wanted to be a mutant?" she demanded of the universe. "Who said I could handle being shot at with missiles and semi-automatics? I can walk through walls, that's all . . . I never hurt anybody . . . They broke into _our home_ . . ."

"We know, _petite_," Gambit assured her. "We're all feelin' it, too."

"I have a midterm tomorrow! I even went to bed early for it! I'm gonna flunk CAD and I've like _never_ flunked a class before . . ."

No one in the helicopter had anything to say to that. They'd escaped alive, which was plenty to be grateful for, but their _lives_ had just evaporated. Their classes and their research, their motorcycles and their cars, their contact with their families, their bedrooms, their favorite spots on favorite couches . . . all the security of normal life that Professor Xavier had tried to give them. It was all behind them now.

The radio crackled to life. "Velocity, come in," Jean ordered. "Velocity, are you guys okay? Come in, Velocity!"

"We're okay," Scott answered, holding the headset to his ear. "We're all okay. We made it out. What about you?"

"Bobby got hit, but he's iced up and passed out now and we think he's gonna be all right. Freezing in here, though. Storm was hit, too, but it's not serious. Just a flesh wound."

"Is Rogue in there with you?"

"No. She's still in the air. Watching our back."

There was a sudden movement outside the helicopter; Rogue flew up to the front windshield, waved, and zoomed off again.

"We're gonna ease up on our speed and let you catch up," Jean told them. "A slower pace will save fuel, and there's no knowing when we'll be able to fill up again."

"Right with you. Have you called Dr. MacTaggart?"

"We're trying, but nobody's picking up."

"Well, no big deal, I guess. 'Later' is a great time for giving bad news. They'll know soon enough."

Jean paused for a moment, then reiterated, "I'm so glad you all made it out okay."

"We hear you," Scott murmured back. "Fly safe and we'll see you on Muir."

* * *

Rogue wove between the two aircraft, compensating for their wakes with the ease of long practice, and circled around them in wide sweeps. The Professor had assured her that nothing could attack them this far out to sea that it would cause an international incident. But Rogue didn't trust politics to keep them safe. She would trust to her eyes, and her fists. If anything came after them, she wanted to know about it long before it got a target lock on either of the planes.

Her ribs still ached. She still felt like she wanted to puke. But flying under the stars in the frigid night air was good for her head and her stomach. She didn't think she could make it all the way to Muir, but she'd stay on guard as long as she could manage. She needed to be alone, in the dark and the cold and the rush of wind, to grieve for everything that they'd lost tonight. Everything had happened so fast . . . not just this, but all the months before it, full of worrying and debate, frantic activity to take their thoughts off what they could not control. It was already over, and she hardly knew what had happened. Her brain was struggling to cope with the idea that she couldn't go home again.

There was a bright, almost blazing moon out. It sparkled on the ocean below them and gleamed off the black surfaces of the planes. After all the explosions, the night was soothingly silent. Rogue found herself drifting in and out of consciousness as her adrenalin rush let down, leaving her exhausted and weary. Of course, the fact that she'd been jolted out of bed at three in the morning wasn't helping matters, either.

The horizon was growing pale; they were flying to meet the sunrise. Rogue had no idea how long she'd been in the air. It was probably time to retreat into the X-Jet and get some sleep. If the military had sent anything after them, it would have caught up to them by now. She fell back a little, squinting through the darkness to locate the top hatch of the Blackbird.

Something darker than the night fluttered at the edge of her vision.

She checked her speed, letting her feet drop underneath her, and tried to get Jean's attention. _Jean, can you hear me?_

_Yeah, _Jean answered inside her head. _What's wrong?_

_Do you or the Professor hear anybody besides me out here?_

_No, no one._

_It's becoming hard to hear you,_ the Professor added. _Catch up, please. I don't want to lose contact._

Rogue obediently shot forward again. She swung under and around Velocity, dodging its blades.

_Did you see something?_ Jean asked.

_Ah thought Ah did, but Ah'm so tired Ah'm gonna be seein' pink elephants in a second here._

_Maybe you should come inside._

_Yeah . . ._

"CHARLES XAVIER."

The voice slammed through the air like a sledgehammer. Rogue stopped dead. The Blackbird and Velocity shot past her, their wakes tossing her hair around her face. _No . . ._

_Rogue? What's going on out there?_

_FLY! FLY! GET OUTTA HERE! GUN IT! GO!_ Rogue threw herself forward and veered right, her eyes frantically scanning for the source of the voice.

Her hand snagged on something.

She was in the middle of the air over the middle of the ocean . . . there was nothing to snag on. But her hand was stuck. The platinum ring she wore was locked in space and constricting around her finger—not enough to hurt, but enough to prevent her from slipping free.

She threw herself backwards as hard as she could, almost wrenching her finger off. The ring wouldn't move. She was writhing now, like a fish on a line, twisting and thrashing in every direction in a futile effort to free herself. The ring would pivot in any direction, but wouldn't move an inch.

Scott's voice sounded in her head. _Hold on, Rogue. We're coming for you._

_NO! Get away!_ Velocity was safe, immune, all plastic and ceramic . . . but _Logan_ was in there, and Peter, and Remy with his staff and picks in his pockets . . .

He rose through the darkness and faced her. Rogue pulled back as far as she could and stayed there, heart pounding, teeth bared. She still had one free hand, and she'd fight to the death with it if she had to.

His eyes gleamed white from under his helmet, and his cape twisted and snapped in the wind as though it, like Rogue, were trying to escape. "Charles Xavier," he said again, and though his voice was quieter, it was no less authoritative. "I know you can hear me through this girl. I don't want to hurt her. I just want to talk."

"Oh, yeah," Rogue snarled. "You just wanna _talk_."

"You have been expelled from your home. You are refugees. I mean you no harm, Charles. Talk to me."

_Eric_, came a voice inside Rogue's head.

_Don't you tell him anything_, Rogue snapped.

"You are flying into a trap!" Magneto roared.

Rogue caught her breath. She could feel the Professor listening inside her head.

"Your government has pressured the United Kingdom into cooperation. They have soldiers and armaments waiting for you on Muir Island. Banshee, Psylocke, and Doctor MacTaggart have all been captured. Unless you listen to me, you and your students will be captured or dead by sunrise."

_Rogue_, the Professor whispered. _Rogue, I must speak with him. Will you permit me?_

_Just get out of here, Professor. You can get away._

_We won't leave you behind. And if he is telling the truth, all our lives may hang on this conversation. Please let me speak._

Rogue nodded. Professor Xavier's consciousness enveloped her own, gently but firmly cutting into her control of her voice, her mouth, the muscles of her face.

"You disappeared," said the Professor, his speech patterns conflicting with the drawl that was programmed into her tongue. "After the battle with Apocalypse. Your injuries were severe . . . I wondered if you were dead."

"Wondered, or hoped?" Magneto asked, his bass voice sardonic, but amused. "I have had work to do. Quietly. Preparing for the day that you and I both knew would come. Now it has come, and I am prepared while you flee your home with a handful of frightened children in their pajamas. Where will you take them if Muir Island is lost to you? Where will you hide them? Where will you run?"

"What do you want?"

"For tonight, I want to offer you safety. Your students need shelter, and food, and rest. Let me bring you to my haven. When they are taken care of, you and I can discuss what is to be done."

"Why would you help us?"

"Because, despite your endless protestations to the contrary, you are mutants. And now, all we mutants have is one another."

"You have Rogue as a hostage, and most of my students are in a metal craft thousands of feet above the north Atlantic. I'm in no position to say no, but I am also in no position to trust anything you say. Even the playing field. Remove your helmet. Let me see that you mean us no harm."

"I do that, and the odds are entirely in your favor."

"Would I find anything in your mind that would lead me to harm you?"

"Probably. We've never agreed on much, you know. Give me your solemn word that you will act based only upon my immediate intentions, and I will take it off."

Xavier nodded Rogue's head. "Tonight, I will act only to protect my students. If you are no threat to them, then I am no threat to you."

"We have a truce."

Magneto lifted the helmet off his head, releasing his long, thick white hair that twisted in the wind. The blank glow of his eyes faded, revealing irises and pupils again. The pupils lost focus almost instantly as Professor Xavier's focus moved from Rogue to Magneto. Rogue sagged in the air, hanging most of her weight on her still-imprisoned finger, trying to get her breath back and remember how to control her own body.

Whatever passed between the two Omega mutants happened in silence and was over in seconds. Rogue's ring ceased to be a shackle and became just a ring again, leaving her to support herself with her own powers. The Professor's command sounded in her head: _Come inside the plane. Everything is arranged._

_Ah don't trust him,_ Rogue hissed.

_But you do trust me. Come inside. We're circling around for you._

She heard the Blackbird's engines coming up behind her. Against all her instincts, she turned her back on Magneto. The top hatch was open. She dove inside, as though the flimsy metal craft could offer her some protection.

Her teammates were all still in their pajamas. There were spare uniforms on the jet, but nobody had bothered with them, even though an unconscious and ice-covered Bobby had frosted the bulkheads and the air inside was colder than the Atlantic winter night outside. Rogue's own clothes were barely more than rags by now, but nobody said anything. It didn't seem that anyone had even noticed. All eyes were on Professor Xavier, sitting quietly in the co-pilot's seat.

She probably knew more about what was going on than any of them. "The Professor and Magneto are cuttin' some kind of deal," she informed everybody. "Magneto says he has a safe place for us to go. He says Muir Island's a trap."

"_Muir Island_ is a trap?" Kurt demanded. "And Magneto isn't?"

"Look, Ah dunno what's goin' on, but Magneto took off his helmet, so that's gotta mean somethin'." Rogue sat down on the floor of the plane and put her back against the wall; her clothes were too torn up and she was too tired to risk sitting on one of the benches. She wouldn't be touching anybody tonight. She curled up with her knees against her chest, making herself small. She didn't want to be brave anymore. She wanted to hide, close her eyes until she fell asleep and woke up safe in her own bed.

"Are you hurt?" Kurt asked her.

Rogue's hand strayed to her aching ribs. "No, Ah'm okay_._" She managed a half-laugh that cut off when the movement hurt too much. "Just got hit in the gut with a freakin' patriot missile is all." She felt the laughter rise up again at the absurdity of it all. _Hit with a missile and Ah hurt like heck . . . Ah'd be in bloody little pieces all over the lawn if Ah was human. Oh, mah gosh, Ah ain't human . . . they shot guns at me 'cause Ah ain't human no more, ain't been human since Ah was a little girl . . ._

She was starting to laugh. Tears were seeping out of her eyes.

Storm stood up and went to the locker in the back of the plane. After a few seconds of searching, she found and pulled on the white gloves that she wore with her uniform. With her hands protected, she knelt down and took Rogue by the shoulders. "Rogue, look at me," she ordered. "_Look at me_."

Rogue looked, shaky and scared from the laughter that wouldn't seem to subside. Storm's strange blue eyes were fierce, clear as a summer sky but somehow as powerful as lightning. "You are all right. Calm down."

The tempests brewing inside Rogue's chest began to recede, held back by Storm's impervious calm and undeniable authority. Storm's memories had taught her how to control herself once; this was just a refresher course. Her breathing eased from tangled gasping and panting into deep, steady inhalations.

Ah'm okay," she told Storm. "Ah'm okay now. Thank you."

The plane shuddered.

"It's all right," Professor Xavier assured them as Jean fought with the controls. He flipped a switch on the panel. "Scott, you'll have to follow us."

"Yeah," Scott answered back, though everybody could hear the reluctance and the defensiveness in his voice. He was still ready to fight. He still believed he was going to have to. Bless Scott. He'd blast his way into Hell and blast his way back out to protect and support his teammates.

Rogue felt her body press down against the floor as the plane accelerated upward. Up? How high could they be going? They were already flying plenty high.

Hank's voice cracked across the intercom. "Velocity's having trouble. The air's too thin. There's nothing to fly on."

"Ah'll go give 'em a push," Rogue offered.

"No," the Professor told her. "There's not enough oxygen out there for you. Jean, can you keep them with us?"

"Well, since I'm not flying this plane, I've got nothing else to do," Jean sighed. She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth.

The two aircraft rose in unison, their engines still running although they were doing very little good. As they rose, the sun burst over the receding horizon, flooding the cabin of the plane with flaming orange light. Jean flinched away from it, putting a hand over her closed eyes.

Kurt squinted into the light. "_Was ist das?_" he demanded.

Rogue raised her head to look. A black, massive _thing_ was in the air in front of them.

"It looks like Asteroid M," Rogue murmured. She grabbed for the comm headset. "Scott, you blew up Asteroid M, right?"

"Right," Scott affirmed. "And when the Summers brothers blow something up, it _stays_ blown up."

"Man, you sound like you're starting a rock band," Kurt observed. "The Summers Brothers."

"He _does_ wear sunglasses all the time," Rogue offered.

"Can we focus, please?" Scott asked.

In the background, Rogue could hear Gambit's voice. "When you guys get some concert t-shirts, lemme know, 'cuz I want one."

"Shut up, Gambit."

Rogue smiled. "Sorry you got stuck on the guy-plane, Kitty."

"It's okay," Kitty assured her. "I'm, like, breathing through my t-shirt so I don't get cooties." Rogue could hear her voice waver up a little too high, and knew that behind the flippant words, her roommate was struggling for composure.

"'Cooties'?" Piotr repeated in the background. He wasn't very good at American teenage slang, though Kurt had been coaching him.

"Never mind," Kitty told him.

Rogue took a deep breath. _We're still human. We're still teenagers. How else could we be joking about rock bands and cooties when we're leaving the atmosphere at the mercy of a crazy super villain?_

_Of course we're still human,_ Jean told her. L_osing our home wouldn't hurt nearly this badly if we were anything else._

From old reflex, Rogue glared at her. _That wasn't for you to hear._

_Sorry. I'm tired, and I'm stressed, and I'm having a hard time tuning out._ Her hands danced across the controls as the plane shuddered and went silent. _And our engines just died, so we're now officially helpless._

Rogue sighed and forgave her. _Ah guess you don't have the luxury of just putting on gloves when you're too tired to control your powers._

_Maybe a lead helmet. I've never tried._ Jean turned her attention back to the plane's controls and sensors. "So any guesses on what that thing is?"

"It's called 'Avalon'," the Professor offered. "Undetectable by any technology on Earth, stockpiled to keep hundreds of people alive for months."

"An orbiting fallout shelter," said Jean.

"Exactly."

"That doesn't sound like Magneto," Scott observed across the comm channel. "He'd build a military fortress, not a hiding place."

"Could be both," Rogue offered.

"If it were both, why would he bring us to it?" asked Jean. "He knows what we'd do to any military facility he tried to build."

"Take it easy, Jean," Hank instructed her. "Worry about it later. The ride's getting a bit rough over here, and Logan shouldn't be moved any more than we can help."

"Why? What's wrong with him?" Jean demanded. "You told me you guys were all right!"

"JEAN!" Scott snapped. "He _is_ all right. He's healing, and he's under enough painkillers to put an elephant in a coma. But _don't shake the helicopter_."

Jean gritted her teeth and gripped the edge of the control panel.

Now that they were closer, Rogue could see structures on the surface of the asteroid and weaving through it. There were corridors, observation decks, launch doors. The thing was enormous. Three or four Xavier Institutes could fit inside it, with wiggle room to spare.

She could see Magneto gliding on ahead of them. His hair was no longer moving; there was no air to move it. He was a statue, moving through the blackness of space as though he were riding on a conveyor belt.

Two massive doors slid open at his unseen bidding. The X-Jet glided into them and came to rest without the slightest bump towards the left side of a wide aircraft hangar. Rogue could see the muscles in Jean's arms and neck tense with the effort of carrying Velocity. The helicopter landed just as gracefully next to her larger sister.

Jean sat back and exhaled, radiating satisfaction. "He can kill all of us with one thought, but at least he's no better at landing planes than I am."

"Let's all keep our heads and remember that we're not here to fight," suggested Professor Xavier, unbuckling his harness.

"Good thing, too," Kurt observed. "Because 'here' is a really bad place for fighting."

* * *

Scott was laying plans as the chopper touched down. "Colossus, whatever happens, don't armor up. It'll just give him further advantage. Kitty, I need you to stay in here with Logan. How long do you think you can keep him phased out?"

"As long as I need to," Kitty told him. She knelt down next to Logan and placed her hand on his head, wincing slightly as some unknown soldier's blood adhered to her fingers.

"Do everything you can. You're the only one that can protect him right now. And it shouldn't matter if you stay phased, but are you wearing jewelry?"

"Nope, I'm okay. What about your visor?"

"Plastic," said Scott, tapping it with one finger just to hear the dense, comforting _thunk_ of the perfectly safe material. "Hank . . .?"

"I never sleep with my tongue stud in," Hank informed him with a flawlessly straight face. "I was thinking ahead to just such an emergency."

Scott couldn't stifle a snort of dry amusement—leave it to Hank to never succumb to the seriousness of any situation. "Gambit, I know it's a bad idea to ask you what you carry around in your pockets, but—"

"But nothin'," Gambit interrupted. "He won' hurt me. De man was my boss, an' he owes me three months' back pay."

"Me, too, actually," Colossus added.

Scott opened the hatch. "Just stay on your toes. I don't trust anything about this whole mess."

The four of them descended to the floor of the hangar. The Blackbird team was disembarking, too. Jean was in the lead and pulling away, in a dead sprint as she ran into Scott's arms. He caught her and held her, probably crushing the breath out of her body. His sloppily bandaged leg was throbbing, and his head was spinning, but Jean was alive and unhurt and safe. They'd all made it out. They were hurt, exhausted, half-dressed, but they were alive and they were together. That counted for a lot.

Scott raised his head, sparing a moment's attention for the rest of his team. Amara was leaning heavily on Sam, looking a little green, and Jamie was white as a sheet. Ray and Roberto were missing; probably still inside the plane, watching over the unconscious Bobby. Rogue's pajamas were so shredded that Scott hardly dared to look at her for fear that one of them would die of embarrassment. Rogue, however, didn't seem to care. She and Gambit met between the two aircraft, their eyes locked. Rogue reached up and placed her fingertips against Gambit's cheek; he mirrored the gesture. For a few long, breathless seconds, they stood perfectly still, communicating wordlessly through their skin.

Jean's shaky voice sounded in his head. _I was so scared . . ._

_Me, too,_ Scott admitted. _We're okay. We're gonna be fine._

_What about Logan?_

_Kitty's with him. He's still under. You know it's for the best; he couldn't do any good here, but there's no way we could have talked him out of trying._

_I know._

Scott loosened his grip on Jean and held her away from him so he could look her over for injury. With an ironic half-smile, he observed, "I knew I should have gotten you pajama pants for Christmas instead of that necklace."

Jean glanced down at herself; the long t-shirt she wore to bed barely fell to her mid-thigh. She managed to smile. "I still liked the necklace better."

The team was around them now. Though Scott didn't want to tear his eyes away from Jean, they both knew that the other students needed him. Jean slid out of his arms, settling her hand into his.

Professor Xavier was the last down the X-Jet's ramp. Kurt had taken Storm's usual place behind the Professor's chair, since Storm had taken a bullet through the thigh and was staying in the air to keep her weight off the injury.

Magneto set his feet on the ground well away from the assembled team. He was massively outnumbered, and yet it was the X-Men who recoiled in worry and distress.

Professor Xavier went out to meet him. Kurt stayed with him every step of the way, not removing his hand from the back of the collapsible wheelchair they'd had stowed in the jet. If anything happened, Kurt would teleport the Professor away . . . away somewhere. At least he'd try. But there was no way he could teleport all the way back to the surface of the planet. They were trapped up here.

"I must return to the surface," Magneto told Professor Xavier. "There are others who are in need of a sanctuary tonight. You and your students are welcome to all the hospitality of Avalon until I return. We will talk then."

"Thank you, Eric. Whatever happens tomorrow . . . thank you for this."

Magneto bowed his head in acknowledgment. "Whatever happens tomorrow, you're welcome."

* * *

French Lesson:

_Petite_: literally 'little' in the feminine form; here used as a diminutive, like "Little One."


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

* * *

Rogue didn't retreat into the X-Jet to change into her training uniform until Jean and the Professor were absolutely certain that Magneto was long gone. She did _not_ want to be naked when that man was within fifty miles of her.

When she emerged from the plane, Piotr was carrying Logan out of Velocity. Kitty still walked beside them, one hand on Logan's head and the other on Piotr's arm, keeping all three of them safely phased out.

Gambit re-entered the hangar from the doorway that led deeper into the complex. "I found someplace," he announced. "Ain't much, but dey's room enough for us all to patch ourselves up an' get some sleep. Not too defensible, but . . ." He shrugged.

"Great," Scott told him. "Let's go."

The room that Gambit had found was indeed not much. It looked like it was supposed to be a conference room, but there was no furniture in it; just a carpeted floor and a wide, sweeping window that looked out onto the blue-green curve of the planet below them. There was only one door, which suited Rogue fine.

Hank opened up the medical kit he'd brought with him and started unpacking it. "Okay, who wants pain pills?"

"Me," chorused several exhausted voices.

Rogue grabbed an emergency blanket and a handful of alcohol wipes and flew over to Piotr and Kitty. "Here," she told them, spreading the blanket over the carpet in a far corner of the room.

Piotr eased down to his knees and laid Logan's battered, bloodied, unconscious body onto the blanket. "He saved our lives tonight," he murmured, carefully crossing Logan's clawed hands across his chest.

"Ah'll stay with him," Rogue promised, dropping wearily down onto the thick, soft pile of the gray carpet.

As soon as Piotr and Kitty had walked away, Rogue pulled one of Logan's unnaturally heavy hands onto her lap, careful to avoid his deadly claws, and tore open the first of the alcohol wipes. She could see the wounds on his skin slowly easing closed, but those weren't what worried her. She didn't want her friend to have to wake up with his hands soaked in enemy blood.

Jean moved so quietly that Rogue had no indication of her coming until she was kneeling down on Logan's other side. She, too, had changed into her training uniform. She sat silent and still for a moment, looking at Logan, then letting her eyes stray up to Rogue's. Without telepathy, she silently asked permission to help.

Rogue passed her some of the alcohol wipes.

She'd spent years resenting Jean, then months pitying her. It was so easy to dislike Jean: to be angry at her for being perfect, to hate her for hurting Logan, to fear her for the power that she wielded over the men of the Institute without even realizing how. The two girls would never be friends, despite all that they shared. But tonight, Rogue was seeing something new in Jean. There was sadness in her bowed head, reverence in the steady movements of her hands as she sponged the blood off Logan's skin. Jean was mourning tonight.

On a sunny mountainside in Japan, Rogue had once joked bitterly that in a perfect world, she would have won Scott's heart and thus left Jean free to be with Logan. It had been an inappropriate comment then, and it was worse now. But Rogue was forced to wonder . . . how much truth had there been in that idle daydream? Had Jean, too, imagined all their lives working out differently? How much of her gentleness was motivated by simple gratitude, and how much by secret things that could never be spoken?

It was none of Rogue's business. Not by a long shot. She dropped her eyes to her work, gently swabbing dried blood out of the creased skin of Logan's knuckles, the lines of his palm, around the exit wounds of his claws. She wiped the stains off of each gleaming blade, transforming them from the weapons of a killer back into the swords of a white knight.

He's starting to come around," Jean murmured. "I can hear him."

Rogue lay his hand down on his chest, carefully keeping the claws from cutting either Jean or herself. "You'd better get back. You know how he wakes up real sudden . . . and jumpy."

Jean crossed Logan's right hand over his left and climbed to her feet, moving well out of his range. Rogue, too, stood and retreated. She was still unwilling to find out if his claws could pierce her skin.

"Jean? Rogue?" Hank drew their attention back to the middle of the room. "Can one of you see about Gambit's shoulder?"

It would have to be one of them. Gambit couldn't be touched by anyone but Rogue, so either Rogue would have to treat him by hand or Jean would have to do it telekinetically. Rogue stepped up. "Ah got him. Come on and sit down, you stupid Cajun, before you bleed to death."

Gambit half-smiled at her and did as he was told. Rogue snagged up some of the medical supplies and knelt down next to him. The bullet had soundly clipped the edge of his shoulder, just below the curve of his neck, and had torn the collar of the t-shirt he slept in. A torn strip of the shirt's hem was wrapped over his shoulder and under his opposite arm, to slow the bleeding. Rogue unfastened the knot and eased the bandage off, flinching as she saw fresh blood welling up as the pressure was released. Not life-threatening, but gross.

"How's my coat?" Gambit asked, craning around to see his reflection in the window.

"It's all covered in blood, but Ah don't think it got torn." Rogue gingerly touched the slimy fabric. "Nah, it's okay."

"_Bon._ Help me off wid dis?" He shrugged his good shoulder, and Rogue helped him ease the coat off, one arm at a time. He was still bleeding, but she knew that the coat had its own triage priority. Remy loved that stupid coat.

The t-shirt was going to be trickier. Rogue hesitated, unsure of how to get the shirt off so she could dress the wound. Finally, she decided that the direct approach was best, since the thing was wrecked anyway. She tore the shirt open, starting at the collar and ripping down the sleeve.

Gambit grinned at her. "You got any idea how hot dat was?"

"If you try to distract me now, this is just gonna hurt worse," she told him, determinedly keeping her eyes on her work. She gingerly pulled away the blood-stiffened fabric, hesitating when she felt Gambit wince. "Sorry." She cracked open a bottle of water and dampened a handful of gauze, then dabbed it on the fabric to soften it until it would peel away without ripping open the wound any further.

She pressed clean gauze onto it, then caught Gambit's good hand and pressed it onto the bandage. "Hold onto that."

The shift in his position brought his face to within inches of hers. Rogue paused for a long, breathless second, then leaned in and kissed him.

The position was awkward and uncomfortable, with his arm wedged between them. They were both desperately sore. They were in plain view of the whole team. And the last thing Gambit needed was to raise his heart rate and speed his bleeding. But neither one cared. Rogue just needed to be close to him, to be assured by his touch and his taste and his scent and his energy that he was still there when so much of what she'd depended on had been torn away from her. She felt her body start shuddering, a sympathetic vibration reacting to the adrenalin rush that had hit him when she hadn't answered their telepathic hails. They were both cold with shock and horror and military detachment, but the heat of the kiss ran through them, reawakening deadened nerves, bringing them back to life.

They drew apart when they both felt the twinge in Remy's shoulder. Rogue carefully untangled her hands from his hair and broke their contact, though the separation left her feeling empty and alone. "Not the time or the place, Ah guess," she murmured.

"Well, I ain't goin' anywhere," Remy joked. "You just say when."

"First I'm getting you cleaned up, and then I'm sleepin' for a year. Then we kin think about 'when'." She moved around to his back and started working on peeling the stiffened cotton fabric from the exit wound.

* * *

While the team patched itself up, Kitty went exploring. She just wanted to have a basic grasp of what was around them, and maybe find out where they would find things like food and bathrooms and showers when these things became important. And though she didn't think she wanted to know, it was probably a good idea to find out if there was anyone else in this crazy spaceship with them.

The complex was a crazy maze of hallways and rooms. While this was intimidating, it did make sense: it was probably hard to build in straight lines when you were building on a lumpy, irregular asteroid instead of a nice patch of flat, securely-on-Earth ground. Kitty did her best to keep track of where she was, noting landmarks and backtracking to them when she became disoriented. Logan had taught her this; it worked as well on asteroid space stations as it did in the woods north of the Institute.

She heard footsteps. Lots of footsteps. And they were coming from the wrong direction to be made by her teammates coming after her.

Kitty ducked into a nearby wall and lay down, leaving just her forehead and eyes sticking into the hallway like a crocodile. She had to hold her breath, but that was okay; she didn't think she could have breathed anyway.

"Man, we been goin' in circles for an hour. We get any lost-er and we're gonna be back in Bayville. Don't they got maps or somethin' in this place?"

Toad. The inevitable, insufferable, wonderfully familiar Toad Talanski. Kitty almost cheered. She scrambled to her feet, gratefully gasping in the recycled air, and called out. "Hey! Over here!"

There was a sound, like a very large zipper being closed right next to her ear, and her hair flew in every direction, and Pietro Maximoff was standing next to her. "It's Kitty!" he announced.

"Kitty?"

"Shadowcat?"

"Kitty!"

Around the corner came the whole Brotherhood team: Toad rebounding off the walls with an eerie, slightly disgustingly-unhuman grace; Wanda, sweeping along in her long red coat as though promising doom and destruction to everything that tried to stand in her way; Blob, graceless but inexorable, doing his best to maneuver up a hallway that was just small enough to keep him from being comfortable; and Lance.

Kitty knew how Lance walked. She'd had a crazy crush on him for most of high school, and had stared at him more than she probably should have. She knew he was the central figure of the Brotherhood, the anchor around which the rest of the team orbited; that he moved hesitantly but defiantly, his shoulders slumped but his feet planting as though he were staking out his territory with every step. That was how Lance was supposed to walk. He was not supposed to be leaning on Blob. His feet were not supposed to be struggling uncertainly for purchase against the floor. And his face was most certainly not supposed to be that color. No one's face was supposed to be that color.

It was the color, more than anything else, that made Kitty forget instantly and absolutely that she had sworn never to speak to him again. She darted forward, phasing to avoid bumping into Toad, and caught his fevered face between her hands. "Lance! What happened?"

"Kitty," Lance murmured, and a pale shadow of a smile crossed his face. "You're okay."

Kitty brushed back his unkempt brown bangs and pressed the back of her fingers against his forehead. His skin was cool and sweaty. "Are you okay? Are you hurt?"

He shook his head. "Just airsick," he muttered, shrugging off his embarrassment.

"Magneto got us out before the feds moved on your house," Pietro told her. "We could see 'em closing in."

"But Rocky here doesn't like flyin' much," Toad added, sounding less than sympathetic.

"It's my powers," Lance insisted, trying to justify himself. "There's no ground . . ."

In an instant, Kitty understood. "Oh, I get it. Amara gets the same thing on boats. Look, come back with me to the X-Men. We've got all our medical gear, and blankets and stuff."

"Camp out with the X-Men?" Blob demanded incredulously.

"Hey," Kitty told him. "We've been kicked out of our houses by guys with guns. I think this officially counts as 'extreme circumstances'. All we've got now is each other."

From instinct, or old habit, or respect, or all three, the whole team looked to Lance for a decision. He nodded, pushing away from Blob a little to stand on his own shaky feet. "Let's go."

* * *

Logan hovered in drugged half-consciousness for an unnaturally long time. His healing powers only had so much energy; fighting off his tremendous injuries and blood loss hadn't left much to neutralize the morphine. And morphine gave him strange, horrible dreams, of guns and fire, screams and blood, needles and knives. He felt a snarl building up in his chest, but it caught in his throat, strangling him.

He woke up disoriented and half-choked, his claws sweeping blindly at the air, coughing and retching as though all his body wanted to do was expel all of his internal organs through his mouth. Strong, slender hands gripped his shoulders from behind, keeping him from curling up on himself, forcing his airway to stay open.

Something solid shoved its way up through his throat. He clapped his clawed hand to his mouth in time to catch four bullets of varying calibers. He stared at them, coughed once more to expel the bitter, metallic taste, and dropped them onto the carpet with a miserable, exhausted groan. A set of unique muscles in his forearms contracted, pulling his claws back through his wrists and into their housings.

"How are you?" asked Storm's voice from behind him.

"Not dead," he murmured back despondently. "Again."

His hands were clean. How could his hands be clean? He stretched one out and scrutinized it in the faint light. The skin of his arm from the wrist up was stiff with dried blood, but his hand was unmarked and smelled of rubbing alcohol. There were faint, red-brown lines under his fingernails.

That had to be Rogue. Only she would have known about how the slimy warm stickiness of bloody hands haunted his numerous nightmares. He'd fought tonight like he hadn't fought for years: as a berserker, a killer, an animal. It was a part of him he'd never wanted the Institute students to see. But Rogue had seen. Rogue knew, and understood, and forgave, and swabbed the blood off of his hands.

His right hand smelled of Jean. He tried not to think about it.

He raised his head, struggling to come to grips with his surroundings. He was in a large, dark, unfurnished room, lit only by the stars outside the enormous window. The floor was littered with people. His people. The air was full of the soft whispers of all of them breathing the slow, steady breaths of exhausted sleep.

Rogue and Gambit lay spooned together, his arm draped over her waist. It looked like she'd fallen asleep holding onto that arm, but her hands had fallen away and lay limply on the carpet. The inescapable duster was draped over them both. Scott and Jean, always more sensitive to the demands of propriety, slept side-by-side with only their interlocked hands touching. Piotr slept propped up against the wall, his head lolling awkwardly on his shoulder, the much-smaller Kitty tucked under his arm and curled up against his chest. Kurt, almost invisible in the darkness, was curled into a small blue lump in one corner of the room. The tip of his tail twitched restlessly in his sleep. All of the younger boys slept in one cluster, Jamie safely in the middle, with Hank stretched out within arm's reach of Sam and Roberto. Amara was on his other side, sprawled on her back, twitching fitfully in her sleep and producing faint, unhappy moans with every other breath. At the far end of the room, Logan could just make out the dim forms of the Brotherhood: Wanda and Pietro sleeping back to back, with Toad curled up at Wanda's feet like a puppy, Lance sprawled on his back with a folded cloth across his forehead, Blob a huge mass of silent sleeping teenage boy. Next to the door was a figure that he didn't recognize at first, but when he squinted he could make out long purple hair: Betsy the telepath, from Muir.

Logan counted up the X-Men again. "Where's Charles?"

"In conference with Magneto."

He sat up. "You should probably back up to when I passed out and catch me up from there."

Storm did.

"Magneto," Logan repeated when she'd finished.

"Yes."

"Space."

"Yes. Amara and Lance are decidedly space-sick, and Bobby had a very close call, but other than that we are all right."

Logan glanced down to her leg, where the shape of a bandage was visible under the fabric of her uniform. "How all right, exactly?"

"Now that you're awake, completely all right."

"Just a little shot up."

"Yes. You took more bullets than the rest of the team put together, Logan. You were the one we were concerned about."

"And we're not concerned about Charles? With Magneto?"

"No." Storm reached out and laid her hand on a cylindrical object that rested next to her on the carpet: Magneto's telepathic-shield helmet. "I am not worried."

* * *

Charles and Eric sat side by side, drinking tea. It was, perhaps, rather a pretentious gesture, but Charles appreciated it. The warm liquid, and the comforting sense of ritual, helped to ease away the last echoes of panic that still trembled in the muscles of his arms and neck and back. He'd come so close to losing one of his children tonight . . . only a matter of a few inches had saved Scott, Gambit, and Storm, and if Bobby hadn't been able to ice up he would have suffered the long, agonizing, disgusting death that inevitably followed bullet wounds to the stomach. In his younger days, Charles had taken his share of bullets and suffered more than one brush with death. But it was easier to bear these things oneself than to watch one's children bear them. They were so brave.

"I believe it's time for my line," Eric announced. He cleared his throat, then announced, "I told you so."

"It's not time yet," Charles insisted. "This was an aberration. A misunderstanding. We can still resolve this peacefully."

"They have driven you out of your home. Out of your country. _Off of the planet_, Charles. What more must they do to you for you to believe me? Humans are the enemy. They have proven it tonight."

"Some are. We have to find out who ordered this attack, and expose them. This attack is enough to topple Mutant Registration, if we're lucky."

"You will not be lucky."

Charles set his cup down on the table, annoyed. "Did you bring me all the way up here simply to argue the same old argument with me? You could have just called."

Eric shook his head. "I brought you up here to keep you and your students safe. Whatever differences you and I have had, those children are still mutants. Still our own kind. I have no wish to see them hurt, either by the humans or by friendly fire."

Charles paused, holding perfectly still, studying the dark, enigmatic eyes of his former friend. "Then you have kidnapped us . . . locked us away up here to keep us from standing between you and your precious all-out war. It won't work."

"I know it won't. That's not what I have done. I want to negotiate with you, not imprison you. Neither of us will ever get what we want while we expend all our resources fighting one another. I propose a truce."

"I won't agree to anything that involves the loss of innocent lives."

"Hear me out first. You and I will agree on a set period of time—a limited time, not forever—for you to try to defeat mutant registration your way. Peaceful protest, good public relations, the courts, the Senate . . . whatever you want. I'll offer you all the assistance in my power."

"And at the end of that limited time?"

"At the end of that time," Eric echoed, "You let me try things my way, without hindrance from you."

"You know I can't stand by and just let you hurt innocent people. And neither will my students. I couldn't stop them from hindering you if I tried."

Eric smiled. "Yes, I know. Your intrepid, indomitable X-Men. I'm not asking you to lock them up. Each of us must fight for what he believes in. All I ask is that you, yourself, stand down, and that you not order them into combat on your own authority. If your young field commander wants to organize them, I'll deal with him. But right now, I'm dealing with you."

Charles leaned back in his chair, interlacing his fingers as he tended to do when thinking hard about something. "And if I refuse this truce?"

"Then we will remain enemies. I will try to fight for our people, you will try to stop me, and when the dust settles lives will have been lost. Mutants' lives. Children's lives. Is that really what you want? How much will you risk to prevent it?"

He would risk a lot. They both knew it. Already he had risked his students' lives over and over again in the name of peaceful coexistence. Charles considered the alternatives, weighed his options, thought of the team asleep in the conference room, thought of the planet sleeping below them.

"You said 'a limited time'," he said at last. "How limited a time did you have in mind?"

* * *

Author's Notes:

No language switching this week, really . . . everybody's a bit too on edge.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

* * *

Peter had always been an early riser. Farmers were like that. It was yet another 'Russian peasant' habit that Gambit liked to tease him about . . . when Gambit managed to be up that early himself.

He was the first of the X-Men to open his eyes. The room was dim with diffuse golden light; the window had developed a tint as the asteroid turned to catch the sun. His teammates lay scattered across the floor, still dead to the world. And Kitty was asleep on his chest, her hair bunched up under her head and her breathing deep and even.

He wasn't quite sure how she'd come to be there. They'd all been so tired . . . she'd practically passed out while still on her feet, and he'd caught her, intending to make her lie down somewhere, and . . . and somehow they'd both ended up here. Peter couldn't say he minded. The petite brunette was warm and soft, and he could catch the strawberry scent of her shampoo with every breath. As far as he was concerned, she could stay asleep as long as she pleased. He wouldn't have disturbed her for the world.

Beast sat in the window, keeping watch over the sleeping students. When he saw Peter's open eyes, he asked softly, "Did you sleep enough?"

Peter nodded.

"Then you're on watch. If anything happens, wake us up."

"Yes, sir."

Hank stretched out on the floor and closed his eyes.

Peter sat motionless for a long time, enjoying the quiet.

Gambit was the next to stir. He wasn't an early riser, but he didn't sleep well in the cold, and the temperature of the room was a good five degrees below comfortable. The red eyes dragged idly open, blinked, and focused on Peter. A smug smile drifted across Remy's sleepy face. "Havin' fun?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

Peter stopped stroking Kitty's hair, wondering in annoyance when he'd started. Gambit's grin got wider. Peter had been given to understand that there was a financial arrangement between Gambit and Kurt whose outcome depended on whether or not Peter managed to kiss Kitty before the end of the school year. "She fell asleep," he hissed back, scowling.

"I kin see dat." Gambit carefully adjusted his position, wincing a little because of his injured shoulder, and settled his face against Rogue's hair. "She's a cute sleeper."

"Our home is crawling with soldiers and we're on a space station at the mercy of Magneto," Peter announced. "Is this really the time for you to be concerning yourself with my personal life?"

"No better time, _mon ami_," Gambit told him. "World's endin', y'know. Try kissin' her awake. _Elles aiment ça, les filles._"

"Mind your own affairs, you tiresome scoundrel."

Rogue shifted reluctantly and snuggled herself closer to Remy's chest, fighting her body's desire to wake up. Gambit smiled and let his eyes drift shut again, his hand playing idly with the fabric of her uniform over her stomach. "Yo' loss," he murmured, rather blatantly enjoying the presence of his sleeping girlfriend.

Peter sighed. He simply didn't understand Gambit most of the time. Flamboyant, dramatic, and incurably nosy, the Cajun was everything that Peter wasn't. And when Gambit wanted something, he didn't care who knew; he just went for it. In fact, the more attention he could drum up, the better. But Peter would sooner die than admit that he thought Kitty prettier than any of the other girls at the Institute. And the more Gambit teased him, the more seriously Peter thought about just where he'd have to whack the thief's head to cause some short-term memory loss.

Kitty made a vague, uncertain sound in the back of her throat and moved, rubbing her cheek against his chest in a half-conscious attempt to figure out what she was sleeping on. Peter froze. If he could have stopped his heart from beating so loudly, he would have.

It was no good. She reached up one uncoordinated hand to feel his chest and throat, and slowly her brain seemed to register that there was no way that could be a pillow. She blinked vaguely and raised her head, muttering something unintelligible.

Gambit opened his eyes and raised his eyebrows. _Eh bien?_ his whole expression screamed. _What are you waiting for?_

Peter tried to ignore him.

Kitty looked up into his face and blinked. "La . . Peter?"

"Good morning," he murmured to her, a smile fighting to emerge onto his stoic face.

She gasped, and a blush rose in her cheeks. "Oh, my gosh . . . did I fall asleep like this? I'm so sorry! My gosh, how embarrassing . . ."

"Hush," Peter warned her. "The others are still asleep. It's truly all right. I didn't want to wake you."

"I'm so sorry," Kitty repeated.

"Please don't worry about it."

Across the floor, Gambit rolled his eyes in complete despair at his hopeless Russian friend and feigned unconsciousness once more.

Kitty sat up, ineffectually combing her hair out of her eyes and pulling out the elastic that was already half-out anyway. "What time is it?" she asked, looking at the wristwatch she wasn't wearing.

"I don't know. It's hard to tell in space."

This reminder of their circumstances seemed to turn her attention elsewhere. She looked across the room to where the Brotherhood had staked out a corner for themselves. "I should check on Lance. He was running a little bit of a fever . . ." She climbed to her feet and headed across the room, phasing through her sleeping teammates.

Lance. Lance Avalanche Alvers of the Brotherhood. Of all the mutants for Magneto to bring to his orbiting sanctuary . . . Piotr sighed and let his head fall back against the wall. His luck.

Gambit gave up any pretense of being asleep and carefully eased away from Rogue. When she stirred, he tucked the coat around her and kissed the side of her forehead. "Shh. Stay asleep, _precièuse_. Dream awhile longer. I won't be far off." He climbed to his feet. "Come on, Peter. Since y'ain't doin' much useful wid y'morning, come help me find a kitchen. _C'est un matin des beignets._"

* * *

Scott lurched gracelessly to his feet, still disoriented with exhaustion, and went limping out into the hall. He'd slept with his sunglasses on, and now had a welt running across his temple from where the bow had pressed into his head. And his leg was aching, but it wasn't as bad as it had been.

A vague echo of voices and clattering dishware led him through the complex and into a large, bare industrial kitchen. Everything in it was the same battleship-steel gray: the floor, the wall, the counter tops, the appliances, even the table and chairs. Peter stood at the stove, poking at an army pan full of hot oil, where several round things, some pale white, others golden brown, bobbed complacently. Kurt, who had the peculiar talent of finding some way to hang upside-down from absolutely anywhere, had hooked his legs over the fire extinguisher pipe that ran underneath the hood of the stove and was scrambling up a large, runny mess of eggs. Gambit was up to his elbows in a very large bowl of sticky-looking batter.

"What on earth are you guys doing?" Scott asked, reaching a hand under his glasses to rub the sleep out of his eyes.

Kurt waggled a chastising finger in Scott's direction. "You forgot . . . we're not on Earth anymore."

"Real funny, Kurt."

"We're makin _des beignets_," Gambit offered, holding up a handful of slowly dripping batter. He reached over the pan and squeezed his fist shut, forcing the dough to fall into the oil. "Specially reserved for really good mornin's and really bad mornin's. I saw a case of orange juice in de walk-in freezer over dere. You wanna mix it up?"

Scott did as he was told. On the field of combat, he made the decisions, but when it came to cooking, Gambit was boss, hands-down. Control of the kitchen was the only thing the Cajun and Jean ever fought about, and the fights always resulted in property damage. It was best to just stay out of his way.

The freezer was enormous, almost more meat locker than walk-in. It was packed tight with boxes of canned juice, frozen dough, meat, fruit . . . even five-gallon tubs of ice cream. Scott found the box of orange juice concentrate Gambit had been talking about, ripped the tape off it, and pulled out a few of the cans.

He'd just found some pitchers (also metal) in one of the cupboards when Rogue joined them. She was flying instead of walking, but not in the usual graceful swoops of movement that she indulged in when she decided to be airborne. She was drifting, keeping her body as still as possible. No wonder. Her face was polka-dotted with bruises, each one the size of a quarter, marking where a bullet had plowed into her skin.

"My gosh, Rogue!"

Gambit turned to look up at her. "Rogue . . ."

"Don't you _dare_ touch me with slime all over your hands!" Rogue ordered, recoiling from his extended fingers. "Not when mah shower's on another planet."

Gambit grinned one of his evilest grins.

"Gambit, don't you . . . NO!"

Gambit jumped across the kitchen at her. Rogue dodged and tried to deliver the spin-kick-between-the-shoulder blades that had once been a trademark move of hers, but her injuries made her too stiff to execute the move correctly. Gambit ducked under it, rolled, shot back up with more-than-human speed, and jumped at Rogue again. In seconds, he had her pinned against the wall, one batter-covered hand planted against the gray steel surface on either side of her head.

"Ah hate you," Rogue announced, glaring defiantly up into his face.

"Countin' on it, _chère_."

"Seriously. _Don't even_."

"Leave her alone, man," Kurt ordered. "She's hurt."

"It's fun to watch her squirm," Gambit told him, not taking his eyes from Rogue's.

"I vill 'port you back to the planet if you don't back off my sister."

He grinned and backed off, his hands held up in surrender. "Hey . . . no harm, no foul. _Voilà_." He sent charge up through his hands, and the batter on them flared. When the light died, the sticky slime had dried to powder. When he flexed his fingers, it cracked and crumbled to the floor.

Rogue let out her breath, slumping in relief and wincing in pain. "Thank you."

"How are you feeling?" Scott asked her.

"Like roadkill," Rogue told him. One hand strayed up to her ribs; she pressed gently and hissed in pain. "Nothin's broke, Ah don't think, just real tender."

"You saved our butts last night."

Rogue grinned at him. "Well, it was worth it. They're pretty nice butts."

Scott half-smiled at her.

"_Viens manger_," Gambit told her, grinning at the compliment and Scott's discomfort, carefully taking her by the wrist and guiding her towards the table. "You kin have de first one."

Rogue snickered. "Very southern. The world's ended, so what do we do? Fry somethin' up and feed everybody."

"Never known a good meal t'do a body no harm," Gambit shrugged.

Peter, staying quietly out of the conflict, had by now removed four of the golden beignets and had laid them out on wire racks over paper towels to let the oil drain off them. He passed the coolest of them over to Rogue, who cracked it open and dug her teeth in with a groan of appreciation. "Ah love these."

Scott had never actually tried a beignet, though they smelled pretty good. Curious, he picked one up and took a bite. It burned the inside of his mouth—he'd momentarily forgotten that just because Rogue could skip blowing on something didn't mean that he could do the same. But through the burn, he could taste a whole mouthful of fried sugary goodness.

As soon as he managed to swallow, he agreed, "Wow, Gambit. She's right. These are great."

Gambit grinned. "World's best beignet recipe. Got it from a whore I know."

Scott just stared at him for a second, his mouth hanging a little slack around his second bite as he tried to remember whether STDs could be transmitted by beignet recipes. It was sometimes very hard to know when to take Gambit seriously. Behind him, Peter snorted in annoyed amusement.

There were footsteps in the hallway, accented with the sharp clack of metal on metal, like someone walking in tap shoes. Scott's head whipped up reflexively, his whole body flaring hot from the sudden rush of adrenalin into his blood.

Magneto strolled into the kitchen as though he owned the place—which, Scott had to admit, he did. His sharp blue eyes scanned over each of them in turn. Rogue turned away from his gaze, towards Kurt, whose face was strangely closed-off and blank. But Gambit and Peter both turned to him, standing up a little straighter as they did so.

"Mornin', Boss," said Gambit, with carefully restrained casualness.

"Good morning, sir," Peter echoed.

Scott fought the urge to scowl. His team was trapped on an asteroid a million miles from a home they couldn't go back to, at the mercy of their oldest enemy, and half his firepower had divided loyalties. Great. Absolutely freaking fantastic.

"Good morning, gentlemen," Magneto answered them soberly.

"Where's Professor Xavier?" Scott demanded.

"He's asleep. We were up rather late settling our plans. There's coffee, if you're interested."

No one had bothered to look for coffee. They were all too jittery from last night to really need the stimulation.

"We kin tend t'feedin' ourselves, sir," Gambit assured him. "You've pr'vided everythin' we need."

"I'm glad to know it. You're welcome to anything you can find, of course."

"Greatly appreciated."

Magneto turned his gaze to Rogue. Her back was to him, but her head was twisting, her need to keep him in her sights warring with her need to not acknowledge his presence. "If you are so afraid of me, Rogue, that you can't even look at me, you'd better take off that ring."

Rogue twisted, her gray-green eyes flashing with fury and her left hand curling into a fist. "Don't you tell me what Ah'd better do."

Still upside-down, Kurt wrapped one three-fingered hand around her shoulder. She reached up to grip it, holding onto her brother like he was her last lifeline.

Magneto only nodded. "As you choose." Without any other acknowledgment, he surrendered the room to them, the metal in the soles of his shoes tap-tap-tapping against the floor.

"Plans?" Scott demanded as soon as the sound became inaudible. "What plans? What were they planning?"

"If I thought dey took notes, I'd steal em for yeh," Gambit offered, "But I bet dey didn'. An I got my hands full wid breakfast, 'cuz Kurt's burnin' de eggs. Fuzzball, I know y'havin' a crisis over dere, but you gotta stir dem t'ings." He reached up to Rogue's face with his now-clean hand and brushed his fingertips across her bruised cheek. "_Ça va, bébé_?"

Rogue nodded. "Just so mad Ah could spit is all."

"Not in de food," Gambit ordered her. He bent down and kissed her, just at the corner of her eye where her ivory skin was unmarked. "Somebody better go wake up de team or everythin's gonna get cold."

* * *

A side effect of Logan's powers was the natural consequence of the Law of Conservation of Energy: the more he healed, the more he had to sleep and eat to make up for it. So he was annoyed, but not surprised, to find that he'd outslept most of the others. Only Amara and Jean were still out.

Jean had dark circles under her eyes. No surprise. At least it didn't look like she'd been hurt, and when he drew in a breath he caught no scent of her blood. Lots of his own, though. She'd gotten it on her hands, and the alcohol on the cleaning wipes had not erased the smell of himself that had been absorbed by her skin.

Most of the time she'd been in danger, he'd been wasted on morphine. And now, on Magneto's turf, he wasn't going to be much more useful. His every movement was subject to veto. Weapons wouldn't do him any good, but while nobody was watching him, he might be able to collect some information that could come in handy.

He stood, suppressing the snarl that rose in his throat in response to the pain in pretty much every muscle of his body. Not done regenerating yet. But he could walk. Probably fight. Another hour, maybe two, and he'd be back on his game . . . for all the good it would do anyone.

He left the room, checking as he went for the scent of anyone he didn't recognize—or anyone he _did_ recognize and didn't like. The corridor was clean. Magneto hadn't been checking up on them while they slept.

Most of the team had turned left, following the inviting odor of breakfast. There was an older scent of Kitty running the other direction; she'd been scouting the terrain. Good girl. He followed her trail for a while, discovering what she had already seen: the lowest level of the complex, housing the aircraft hangar, several massive storage rooms, and the generator that powered the station. (Logan couldn't see what it was running on; Magneto probably charged the thing himself.) There were no locks on any of the doors.

Even on the door that led into the power enhancing machine.

Logan knew perfectly well what it looked like; he'd seen it on Asteroid M, all those years ago, when Scott and Jean were still high school underclassmen and he'd felt annoyed and put upon with only _six_ students to herd. The huge, round, vault-like door was identical to what he remembered. Part radically experimental and dangerous DNA rewriter, part brainwashing device, all Magneto. He'd had the gall to re-build the thing and then bring them all up here to look at it.

Logan popped his claws and headed with calm deliberation for the control panel.

_Don't, Logan_. Charles's voice rumbled through his head, bringing him up short.

_You seen what he's got down here?_

_ I'm about to. I'm getting the grand tour. But don't demolish it. Not yet._

The claws retreated. His hands stung. He was used to it.

At the end of the corridor, he could hear the _clack, clack, clack_ of Magneto's metal-soled shoes against the floor. Made sense, if you had magnetic powers and liked to float around, to fill your shoes with something you could work with. But it was also conditioning for everyone else. If they got used to the convenient, warning clicking sound, then they wouldn't be prepared for a Magneto who took the trouble to approach silently.

Magneto and Charles entered the room together. Magneto was still bare-headed. "So, Wolverine. You intend to repay my hospitality by demolishing some of my most valuable equipment."

"Not the hospitality," Logan shot back. "Just everything else."

"He has a right to be concerned," Charles interjected. "I don't like seeing this here, Eric. It rather undermines the promises you've made—having a mind-control device ready to hand."

"This isn't a mind-control device. It's only a power enhancer. A scaled-down model of what you saw before."

"Why the scaledown?" Logan asked, his voice heavy and twisted with irony. "Budget cuts?"

"Well, to be perfectly blunt, because the mind control didn't work very well." Had to give the man credit—at least he owned up to his history of creepy behavior and evil schemes. "But the enhancer itself is too intriguing a project to be abandoned entirely. And, as you saw with your Cyclops, it has the potential to help mutants who are struggling with control."

"Or to do the opposite, and enhance their powers past the point where they can be controlled," Charles pointed out. "I notice you haven't tested it on Wanda."

"I tested it on myself. Isn't that enough? I built it here as a resource, just like the medical bay and the training facilities. Because I expect that we'll have a lot of mutants up here very soon, and it may be useful."

Logan snorted. "The second one of our kids ends up in that thing without me knowing about it, you are a dead man walking."

"I tremble in fear and am thoroughly intimidated," Magneto informed him. "Your students will be serving up breakfast right about now, if you're hungry."

"Gotta check on 'em anyway," said Logan, acknowledging that he'd been dismissed but not liking it. He stalked out of the room. As long as Storm had that helmet, Charles had the upper hand against Magneto, and didn't need a bodyguard.

"You really shouldn't provoke him," he heard Charles's voice say from inside the room.

"He's a mad dog with a metal collar," Magneto answered dismissively. "Hardly a threat. I've never understood why you place such stock in him when he's probably the least powerful mutant in your household."

"What makes you say that?"

"Simple fact. A beta mutant, who can affect nothing outside his own body, is outclassed by an alpha mutant just as an alpha would be outclassed by us. And he has such a pacifistic power."

"I'm fairly sure that's the first time in my life I've ever heard anyone refer to Logan as _pacifistic_."

"Simple cell regeneration that doesn't even extend beyond his own skin. Even if he _were_ an alpha, his power wouldn't have offensive, combat applications. He's a healer, a mutant medic. Nothing more. His military usefulness stems more from his masochism than from his powers."

He heard Professor Xavier sigh. "I've know a lot of people, over the years, who have underestimated Wolverine. And I state as a matter of simple fact that, now that I think about it, most of them are dead."

Xavier could hear his mind, and Magneto could hear his bones; he knew that they both knew he'd eavesdropped. No need to make a point about it. Logan continued up the hall, following the scent of fried food and scared, unwashed kids, headed up a flight of stairs, and found himself in the kitchen with at least half the team.

There was a rousing chorus of "Logan!" followed by a jumbled wave of "Are you all right?" "You okay, man?" "You're awake!" "My gosh, you're _filthy_!"

"Hey, guys, give him some space, okay?" Scott ordered. "You want protein? Gambit's got eggs."

"Thanks."

"Grab a plate," Gambit ordered. The army pan full of eggs had been turned down to the lowest heat setting. Logan grabbed a plate from the stack on the counter and offered it.

"Pile 'em on. I lost a lot of blood."

"Egg-based transfusion, comin' at ya." Gambit portioned over as much as the plate would hold. With his left hand.

Logan lowered his voice. "Pitchin' southpaw this morning?"

"Took a bullet through my shoulder."

"Need a top-off?"

"Wouldn't mind one."

Logan offered his free hand. Gambit set down the serving spoon and slapped his own hand into the callused palm.

"Logan, _don't you dare!"_ Hank snapped. It was too late. Gambit's artificial, chemically simulated absorbing power felt different from Rogue's natural one, the icy burn of it deeper but not as sharp or intense. Logan felt blood rush out of his face and hands as he went into shock, and something started to burn and itch inside his abdomen as a few of the bullet holes re-opened.

Gambit snarled, his lips pulling back over his teeth the way Logan's did when he was in pain. The muscles of his arms twitched and clenched as he tried to let go of Logan's hand.

Hank grabbed one of them in each arm and pulled them apart. Turning on Gambit, he announced, "Just because you've seen Rogue do it doesn't mean you're ready to do it. She's trained for years to know how and when to let people go. She is better at it than you are. And you—" here he turned on Logan, "Just re-opened half your gunshot wounds, didn't you?"

"Just internal bleeding, I think," said Logan, pressing experimentally into his abs with the heel of his hand. "Gimme half an hour and I'll get Rogue fixed up, too."

"Not in a million years, Logan," Rogue called from the adjacent dining room. "Stop being stupid and eat your breakfast."

"Tabasco?" asked Gambit, proffering the bottle as though nothing had happened.

"Thanks."

* * *

French Lessons:

Gambit's now in a bit more relaxed mood, so we've got plenty this time around . . .

_Elles aiment ça, les filles: _Girls like that.

_Precièuse: _Yet another one of those terms of endearment; 'precious' would probably be the best translation.

_C'est un matin des beignets: _It's a beignet morning. (If you've never had a beignet, go have one. Seriously.)

_Viens manger: _Come eat.

_Ça va, bébé_? You okay, babe?

Thank you so much, wonderful and awesome reviewers! I know I've been a ditz getting back to you . . . I will do better, cross my heart. My brain was otherwise occupied with buying my first car this week. :) (Baby blue Chevy Aveo, if you were dying to know. Which of course you were.)


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

* * *

Jean was the last to make it to breakfast. Carrying Velocity had drained more out of her than she'd thought; even after as much sleep as she could manage, she still felt groggy, and her back and brain were sore.

Scott had made sure there was food left for her. He won a lot of points for that.

There was a dining space . . . almost too big to be called a dining room, since there was more than enough seating around the huge table for the entire team plus the Brotherhood and Betsy . . . adjacent to the kitchen, where most of the team wandered with their plates. They were in surprisingly good shape, physically and emotionally. Hot food was doing wonders for their morale. Even Bobby, who'd been fatally shot not twelve hours ago, was laughing with Ray, Roberto, and Sam while eating like a horse. Nothing got a fifteen-year-old jazzed like cheating death. The only X-Man that didn't look to be in at least acceptable shape was Amara. She sat by herself in the corner, her face gray from space-sickness, mustering the strength to smile nauseously at Hank as he brought her a cup of something that steamed.

Jean had downed an entire plate of eggs, sausage, and hash browns, as well as three beignets, when Professor Xavier finally joined them. Magneto was with him.

"Sit down, please, everyone," the Professor requested. "Or at least make yourselves comfortable. We need to discuss our situation, and our plans."

More people stood up than sat down. Jean was among them. Her powers were so drained that she was still having a hard time tuning out the team's thoughts, and what she picked up was suddenly very stressed. She took a deep breath and focused on closing off her mind.

The professor let his attention move to Betsy for a moment. "Betsy . . . Where is Doctor McTaggart? And Sean?"

Betsy indicated Magneto with her head, her face grim. "_He_ wouldn't bring Moira," she informed him flatly. "Sean wouldn't leave her. But they're both free and on the run. I opted to come. I thought you might be glad of my help."

"That I am. And I'm glad to know that your team is safe." He turned back to the team, quickly making eye contact with each X-Man to gauge his or her mental state. "Magneto and I have reached an agreement," he announced. "We are going to do everything within our power to peacefully overturn the law that has driven us from our home."

There was silence for a long moment. Toad broke it. "Yeah, go ahead, pull the other one."

"Our best hope is a decision from the courts, overturning the Registration Act. Until there is a ruling, there will be no violence between mutants and humans."

"And after it does?" Kitty asked.

Professor Xavier bowed his head. "After that . . . each of us will act as he or she sees fit to do. And I will not be involved. That was the price of the deal."

Jean's mouth flew open, but whatever she might have said was drowned in protests from the rest of the students. "You're _kidding_!" "But you can't!" "What the heck?" "Professor Xavier, we need you!"

"_QUIET."_

Professor Charles Xavier very, very rarely raised his voice to his students. He didn't really raise it now. He just infused it with an imposing reminder that most people in this room owed him their lives, and when he told them to be quiet, they'd all better do it, _this instant_. Silence happened so suddenly it felt like they'd all been hit in the face with a very large, invisible pillow.

"Right now, however, we're focusing on our immediate needs," Xavier continued. "We've agreed that our first priority is to evacuate any mutants we know of who may still be in danger. I did my best to make sure all our records were destroyed, but it's possible our aggressors could still find information that could lead them to Rahne and Jubilee."

"And Evan," Storm added. She still had Magneto's helmet tucked under her arm.

"Evan's wid de Morlocks, Stormy," Gambit told her. "Dey's de least of our problems. If I can't find 'em, dey's no way in hell de U.S. Government's gonna do any better."

"Don't call me that," Storm sighed.

"Forge and Tabitha are still in Bayville," Jean offered. "They're not X-Men, but they'll probably be some of the first targets, living so close to us."

"What about that guy in New York?" Rogue asked. "The one with the wings? Walter, or something . . ."

"Warren," Magneto corrected flatly. "Worthington. His money will protect him."

"We should check on him," announced Scott. It was only a small contradiction, but Jean could see a test in it. He wanted to see if Magneto would fight him for authority. When the Omega said nothing, Scott continued, "Alex's number is in my phone, and I left that in my room, so they've got it now."

"Carol's address is in my dresser drawer," said Rogue.

"The feds already know about her," Logan told her, "but she could still need a hand. She's got no powers to protect herself with."

"If she's got no powers, are they even gonna care about her?" Rogue asked.

"Will a bunch of mutant-haters be interested in a mutant who's got her powers taken away? I think they might be. Just a little."

"I got a call I need to make, too," Gambit murmured. "Old friend. Prob'ly well outta harm's way, but I won't sleep easy 'till I know for sure."

Jean caught the glance that Rogue shot at Gambit . . . not quite worried, not quite upset, but decidedly intense and concerned. Gambit answered it, and though they weren't touching, Jean could almost see some kind of communication flicking back and forth through the air between them.

"We will also address the situation in Washington," Professor Xavier told them. We need to know more about this Senator Creed . . . find out why he's doing this, and if he can be reasoned with."

"He can't," said a new voice.

The room exploded with movement and noise in less than a heartbeat. Logan, who'd been leaning against the wall where he had a good view of the entire room, was in the air, claws out and spread wide, teeth bared, the snarl of a wild, cornered animal ripping out of his chest. From the doorway, another, much larger, tawny gold form was jumping to meet him, roaring.

Jean reached out and grabbed it. The inertia and the weight pressed on her strained system, making her feel like she was carrying a car on her shoulders, but it froze. She was holding Sabertooth immobilized in midair. It was like having a tiger by the tail.

Logan, too, was suspended and frozen. Magneto had raised a hand to catch him, but he lowered it once he was sure of his hold. Ignoring both Logan and Sabertooth, he looked to Jean. "Excellent catch, Miss Grey."

"Thanks," Jean groaned through gritted teeth. "What's he doing here?"

"He's one of my people," Magneto explained flatly. "I take care of my own."

Sabertooth raged and twisted at her. Her hold slipped, letting him lunge closer. She managed to halt him within inches of her nose, not without an involuntary, grating cry of surprise and effort. Logan let out a roar that would have rattled the windows, had there been any. A vein in his forehead was standing out from the strain of fighting Magneto.

"Stop it," Magneto ordered Sabertooth, steel and thunder in his voice. "This is neither the time nor the place for your antiquated feud. And you, Charles . . . will you kindly keep your people under control?" He dropped Logan unceremoniously onto the floor.

Jean hesitantly released her hold on Sabertooth. He seemed to have lost interest in her for the time being, and though he and Logan were still eyeing one another, neither made any move to resume the fight as Logan climbed to his feet.

"Why do you say that Senator Creed cannot be reasoned with?" Professor Xavier asked him. "Do you know him?"

Never taking his eyes from Wolverine, Sabertooth muttered, "Not personally. But I know he's got no business being human." He took a deep breath through his nose, then blew it out with something like contempt. Logan shifted sideways, bringing himself closer to Jean and Scott. Though his mouth was still open, his lips drawn back in a warning, half-snarl, he, too, was breathing through his nose.

"Why is that?"

"Because both his parents are mutants. At least, that's what she told me."

"I knew it," Logan snarled. "I knew there had to be a connection. You don't get two people that sadistic both named Creed."

A half-smile pulled at one corner of Sabertooth's mouth. He shifted his weight, experimentally, watching for Logan's reaction. Logan moved to match him, putting himself between Sabertooth and the rest of the team.

"Does he know his heritage?" Xavier asked.

"Looks like it, if he's out to kill us all," Sabertooth observed, without embarrassment.

Jean was having a hard time keeping up with the two simultaneous conversations, one spoken, one conveyed in movement and scent and exposed teeth. It was like they were speaking another language, one she'd never studied.

"Who is his mother?" Xavier asked.

"Mystique," Logan answered before Sabertooth could say anything. "Right combination of bad taste and good survival skills."

Smirking, Sabertooth nodded, acknowledging that Logan's guess was correct.

"Oh, mah gosh . . ." Rogue muttered, putting a hand to her mouth as though she might be sick. Her gaze flicked to Kurt, whose jaw had dropped open, showing his pointed canines. Rogue, adopted as she was, could conveniently disown Mystique's memory whenever she found it convenient, but Kurt was the shapeshifter's son by blood. And Senator Creed was his older half-brother.

After sharing a moment of shocked silence, Kurt announced, "Ve are _not_ putting him on the Christmas card."

Sabertooth's smirk spread wider into a grin. "Like I said . . . that's what she told me. She played the field enough, though . . . just because he has my name don't mean he's mine. Could be yours."

Logan snarled.

"Then again," Sabertooth amended, "maybe not. He's too tall. Or maybe you just don't like redheads." The feral golden eyes flicked to Jean for a split-second, and her whole body froze involuntarily. She saw his red tongue dart out and slide across his lower lip. "Scared of the politicians, little vixen? Or of me?"

"Watch it, Furball," Rogue snarled. The aggressive rumble of Logan's growl underscored the fury in her voice.

Sabertooth moved his gaze to Professor Xavier. "Looks like I'm not helping the conversation much. I'll get outta here. Thanks for breakfast." He nodded once to the Professor and once to Magneto, shot one last smile at Logan, and left the room.

After a long moment of awkward silence, Magneto picked up the discussion again. "We should deploy strike teams to evacuate those we've listed. You have your two vehicles . . . I don't need one, and your airborne team members should be able to make an in-atmosphere rendezvous."

I'll take Velocity," Logan announced. "And I'm taking Jean with me. I need a telepath."

"Are you—" Professor Xavier began.

"Yes."

"Maybe I should—" Jean tried. Herself and Logan in a helicopter alone for who-knew-how-long was probably the worst idea in the history of the world. Her stomach was twisting into knots of dread.

_Please, Jeannie. Trust me._

Logan hardly ever let her communicate with him telepathically—he valued his privacy and her innocence too much. But the mental call was intense, insistent, with just the faintest tinge of wildness that would have sounded like panic if it had come from anyone else.

She gave in. "Maybe I should move the mini-Cerebro into Velocity," she finished, "so we can stay in touch with you."

"That's a good idea," Professor Xavier agreed. "With everyone we have, I can put together another to use up here."

"Okay." Jean turned to Scott and kissed him goodbye.

_What's he up to?_ Scott asked. She could feel his unsettled worry through his lips, in his shoulders.

_I don't have a clue,_ Jean admitted, _but I think I should just do what he says right now. Be safe, Scott. I love you._

_Love you too._

Jean turned to Logan, who hadn't taken his eyes off her for a second. "Let's go."

Logan nodded and headed for the door. Jean followed him. As he reached the doorway, he snapped, "_Aza-chan_."

"_Hai_." Rogue shot after them, out into the hallway where they were out of earshot of the rest of the team.

Logan and Rogue had a brief conversation in the privacy of the hall and the deeper privacy of Japanese. Jean carefully kept herself out of their heads, but learned what she could through watching. Logan was giving Rogue instructions. She was evidently struggling to understand—she'd finished a semester of Japanese already, but one semester didn't equal fluency by a long shot—but she repeated back words she didn't understand, and Logan spoke carefully and clearly. Neither one lapsed into English for a second.

Jean bit her tongue to keep herself from demanding entrance into the conversation. She wasn't Logan's sidekick and confidante anymore; that was Rogue's place now. This conversation was none of her business. Being the object of Logan's doomed love seemed to have disqualified her from being close to him in any other way.

She wished desperately that she'd studied Japanese instead of Spanish. But Logan would probably have just switched to Swahili. Or Tagalog. Or something.

Rogue nodded her acknowledgment of her orders. Logan leaned in to kiss her on the top of her head. Then he murmured, "Good luck. Be careful," and turned away, catching Jean by the arm to pull her with him.

"Where are we going?" she demanded, skipping a few steps to keep up with his astonishingly quick pace.

_Out of this deathtrap. Don't talk out loud._

_You're always telling me that I should talk out loud more often._

_Listen to what I'm telling you_ now.

He navigated the twisting corridors without a second's hesitation, descending to the hangar where the Blackbird and Velocity waited.

_What do you mean, 'deathtrap'?_ Jean demanded, watching Logan close the hangar door and plunge his claws into the computerized lock. _Are the others in danger?_ She couldn't believe it. If the others were in trouble, Logan would never run from it himself and leave the rest of them behind.

_They're not. You are. _He sheathed his claws and looked up at her, his face dark with ferocity and grief. _I'm so sorry, Red. Hurry up and get Cerebro moved._

Jean hurried. The Cerebro headset had been designed to switch easily between the two aircraft; it usually stayed in the X-Jet because it was nearly all metal. Logan fretted the entire time, staying between her and the door, sniffing suspiciously at the air, keeping his weight forward on the balls of his feet. Just being in the same room with him was enough to make her so jittery that every pop and hiss of the climate control system threatened to make her jump out of her skin.

_Faster_, he growled through the silence. _Faster._

_What's wrong?_ Jean demanded, hauling the headset and its attendant circuitry up into Velocity. _What did I do? Just tell me!_

_You didn't do nothin', darlin'._ He followed her up the hatch and threw himself into the pilot's seat. _It's what I did. _He closed the craft, and watched with sharp eyes until the ramp was completely and securely closed. _Can you get us down into the atmosphere?_

Jean closed her eyes, the better to 'see' the objects around her with her powers. His urgency was making her so antsy that she was more worried about ripping the chopper open than about being unable to lift it. Her powers tended to be harder to control when she was upset.

She managed to ease them out of the landing bay without breaking anything, then let the helicopter plunge toward the planet in a gently-controlled drop. Logan tried five times to get the engine running before it finally caught. The chopper blades roared to life, and Velocity began supporting her own weight in the air.

"Now can I talk out loud?" she asked, opening her eyes and dropping into the co-pilot's seat.

"If you have to." Logan was focused on steering the plane, guiding it in a direction that wasn't just 'down,' and very deliberately not looking at her.

"What happened back there? What did I miss?" Jean demanded.

"It's nothing you have to worry about now."

"Logan! For crying out loud! Tell me!"

He sighed, and his head sagged forward with the weariness of too many endless decades of fighting and running and suffering and fighting again. "He wants to kill you."

"Me? Why me?"

"Because of me. Because . . . look, everything has a scent. Fear, anger, grief . . . even love."

Jean felt her mouth snap closed. Against her will, blood rushed into her face. "Oh. You can smell . . . all that?"

"Yeah."

"And Sabertooth, too? Because he's like you?"

His hand clenched into a fist on the control panel, and bright pinpricks of blood appeared between his knuckles. "He is NOT like me. I am not like him." He took a deep breath and pulled back the claws that were fighting to get out, and pressed his hand to the side of his leg to wipe the blood off his skin. "But yes, he can smell it. He picked up how my scent changed when he feinted for you, so now he knows . . . everything. Enough."

"But why would he care?"

"Because he knows me, and he hates me, and he likes to make me suffer. No better way to get at me than by going for you girls."

Jean nearly jumped out of her chair. "But what about the others? We have to go back!"

"No, they're all right. He can't lay a hand on Kitty, and he can't leave a mark on Rogue. Storm isn't afraid of him, so she's not interesting, and he knows better than to mess with Wanda, not when he's at Magneto's mercy."

"Amara?"

"I don't think he'll go for her when he's hunting you, but Rogue's watching her. She'll keep her safe. And with any luck, she's space-sick enough that they'll have to take her home to Brazil in the next couple hours. So all we have to do is find someplace to stash you until I can take care of him."

"You are not going to 'stash' me. I belong with my team."

"You belong alive. I am NOT going to let you die, so just sit back and shut up and do what I tell you."

Jean set her jaw, biting back her fury. Instead of hitting him, which she would have liked to do, she reached around herself and grabbed Velocity, holding it immobile in the air. The controls bucked out of Logan's hands in protest.

"Wolverine," she announced, her voice fierce and cold. He finally looked up at her, sensing from either her tone or her use of his combat name that he'd pushed her to her limit. "I understand that it's hard for you . . . to be around me. And I feel awful about that. But none of that gives you the right to talk to me like you just did. EVER. You're not my father, or my husband, or my boyfriend, or my team commander, or anything but my friend and that was _your _decision, not mine, so where I go and what I do are my decision and no one else's."

He glared at her, and his glare was the sort of predator's gaze that could freeze smaller animals in their tracks. It would have frozen her, if she'd been less mad. "So you want to go back? Is that what you're saying?"

"No, I'm not. If you say I need to stay away from Sabertooth, I believe you. But I'm an X-Man, and X-Men do not get 'stashed.' Not when there are people who need us. I don't want to hide. I want to fight. So if we can't fight him, let's go find something that we _can_ fight."

Logan stared at her for a long minute, then smiled and shook his head. "I keep forgetting just how scary you get when you get your dander up."

"I learned from the best."

"Yeah, you bet you did."

* * *

Scott allowed himself a second to be wrong-footed, but he didn't need more than a second. He was to used to Logan jumping the gun. Getting through today without Logan's guidance or Jean's support wasn't a problem he'd counted on facing, but after last night, it seemed that unexpected problems were just going to be par for the course.

He called order again before anyone had a chance to panic, including him. "Okay, guys. First things first. We're here, we're safe, so that means life continues like normal. Kitty says that there are some dorms on the next level up. We need to get our stuff moved up there and settled in. We also need to get Forge, Tabby, Rahne and Jubilee up here, like _now_. And we have to figure out what our next move should be. So if Magneto will do another run down to pick up our teammates . . .?" He waited for an affirming nod before continuing. "Then I need all the teachers here and the rest of the team moving stuff. And we'll meet up in the gym at eleven o'clock for training." Catching himself, he turned to Magneto. "There is a gym, right?"

"Yes, there is a gym," Magneto informed him, sounding ever so faintly insulted at the insinuation that he would have forgotten something so important in the construction of his space station.

There was a soft, wobbly, metallic sound, like the plastic tubes little kids spin over their heads to make UFO noises, and a long raised ridge appeared in the wall of the dining hall, about five feet off the floor. It ran out the doorway and away along the wall of the corridor outside.

"That way," Magneto deadpanned.

Scott took a second to wonder which freaked him out more: Magneto's mind-boggling powers or the casualness with which he used them.

"We still have to do _training_?" Ray griped, disbelieving. "Our whole world got yanked out from under us and we still have to do _training_?"

"_Especially_ when our whole world gets yanked out from under us," Scott answered. "Be on time or you're running laps."

"There's a conference room at the end of the hall," Magneto offered. "You can have your meeting there. And you might want to use the phone to tell your team members I'll be coming. I don't want to have to knock them all out before I can evacuate them."

Scott nodded; Magneto in a hurry plus a surprised Boom Boom wouldn't end well for anybody. "I'll make the calls."

"Have them rendezvous at the beach north of the mansion," Professor Xavier instructed. "The more quietly they can be extracted, the better."

"Vhat about our families, and our other friends?" Kurt asked. "Zey'll be worried sick about us by now."

"Yeah," Scott agreed. "We'll talk about how we're going to handle contacting everyone's families, then let you know at training, okay?"

"Okay."

"I'll get your plate, if you're done," Hank offered. "Go make your calls."

"Thanks." Scott crossed the dining room and headed out into the hall, wondering as he turned towards the conference room just how he was going to explain all this to Jubilee over the phone.

* * *

Gambit ate his own food quickly and was dumping the cooking pans in the three-compartment metal sink by the time the others wandered in with their plates. The large, cast-iron two-burner skillet was giving him trouble. It was heavy, and his right shoulder was still too sore to take the weight well. Tipping it into the hot soak water was turning into a complicated process involving his knee and hip, propping the uncooperative dish precariously against the sink rim.

There was a mutter of Russian annoyance, and Piotr grabbed the pan and slid it into the water. "_Gambit._ You are an X-Man. You should know how to call for help when you need it."

"Yeah, well," Gambit allowed neutrally. "Hey, y'all," he called to Jamie, Roberto, and Kurt, who were wandering around the kitchen with dirty plates in hand, looking bewildered, "dey's racks over dere by de conveyor sterilizer. Just load stuff in."

"You better finish quick," Kurt advised. "Training starts in half an hour." He checked his watch, then tapped it. "Hey, vhat time zone are we in?"

"I wouldn't know that anyway," Roberto said, shrugging.

"Gambit is exempted from today's training on grounds of his injured arm," Hank announced. "And his volunteering to do dishes."

"I got shot in the gut; can I skip training?" asked Bobby.

"No."

"Why?"

"Because you're fine, and you need to burn off some energy or don't blame me when Magneto throws you out an airlock."

"Ha," said Bobby. "I wonder if I could survive that if I was iced up?"

"Wanna test?" asked Roberto.

Hank shook his head, smiling, and ignored the competitive banter of the younger boys. "Piotr, will you stay and make sure he doesn't re-open that arm?"

"Yes."

"We'll get a dish rotation worked out," Hank promised.

"Take y'time. I hate trainin'," Gambit confessed, though he knew that everybody already knew this.

"And stay together," Hank instructed them solemnly. "We don't know yet just who or what else could be hanging around up here."

* * *

When Scott finished his call with Rahne, the last of the four, the other teachers had gathered and were waiting for him. Somehow, when he'd said 'teachers,' he'd pictured a larger group; suddenly the X-Men's leadership was nothing more than himself, Professor Xavier, Beast and Storm. How was he supposed to lead this team without Logan's insight or Jean's support? If they didn't finish Logan's errand and get back soon, he didn't know what he was going to do.

He didn't know what he was going to do anyway.

"So what do we do?" he asked.

The door was closed; Magneto was off the base. It was their first real opportunity for private conversation, and might be the last for a long time.

"That depends a great deal on where we stand," Storm answered. "Charles . . . will Magneto keep the promises he's made to us?"

"And if he won't, is there anywhere else for us to go?" asked Hank. "If we can't be absolutely sure that Magneto poses no immediate threat to the students, then we need to get off this station and find another base of operations immediately."

"As long as you hold that helmet," Charles told Storm, "There's nothing for us to fear from him. I'm sure of it. He fully intends to do everything that he has promised."

"But why?" Hank asked. "When it would have been so easy to kill us all last night . . . what's his angle?"

"He wants to conquer humanity without our interference," Charles answered bluntly. "He's betting that without me, the team will fall apart—maybe even that some of our people will defect to him. He doubts Scott's ability to lead."

_He's not the only one_, Scott commented in a mental voice he hoped didn't carry beyond his skull. "But if the courts overthrow mutant registration, it won't matter," he said aloud. "He's promised to stand down if the problem is settled legally."

"Perhaps not permanently, but yes, he will stand down and not launch all-out war . . . this time . . . if a court of law will rule that mutant registration is unconstitutional."

"So we need a court case. Can't be hard to find, right? The thing's been in effect for weeks. There must be loads of mutants arrested by now."

"How many have we heard about, though?" asked Beast. "It's fairly certain they're being arrested, but it's been happening quietly."

"Well, our exit last night wasn't quiet," Storm observed, understating. "_Someone_ must have noticed that."

"Yes, and I'd give a lot to know what's being said about it," Hank murmured. "My kingdom for CNN."

"I think . . ." Professor Xavier brought his chair closer to the head of the conference table and ran his hand over the glossy metal surface. Lights flickered within it: touch controls. He pressed a button, and the wall at the far end of the room slid open, revealing a flat screen tv.

"Well." Hank's eyebrows raised, showing just how impressed he was. "I've got my complaints about the decor, but you can't beat the amenities around here."

Xavier switched the television on. Not CNN, as Hank had requested: NBC. Good enough. The station logo sat in the bottom right hand corner of a helicopter shot over their house. The lawn was ripped to shreds by the tanks and trucks that were parked all over it. The hole in the library, which Scott remembered Colossus smashing closed pretty solidly, had been cut open. Soldiers and guns were everywhere. Some were emerging from the house with armloads of computer parts, paperwork, or just _stuff—h_e recognized the blue-and-purple quilt off of Jean's bed, the one her grandmother had made for her before she was born, and felt a hot rush of anger flare through his chest and rise into his eyes. Other soldiers stood guard, as though daring the X-Men to come back and get their lives.

"You're right, Storm," he said at last. "It wasn't quiet."

Professor Xavier switched channels. The news feed mercifully disappeared, replaced by a political talk show.

"The problem here is that we don't know what happened. Was it a protest that got out of hand? Was this a counterstrike against some attack that the Xavier Institute launched against the Mutant Registration Bureau? Is it a flubbed arrest? We don't know enough to speculate, and the agencies involved aren't telling us anything. That, to me, is suspicious."

"I don't think it is. Since at least one and possibly all of these mutants are still at large, we're still in the middle of a military action. Withholding information from the press could be a matter of tactical advantage."

"Look, the school's spokesman announced that their protests were gonna be peaceful. These kids had a serious point to prove. Something had to go seriously wrong for there to be violence, especially violence of this scale."

"It wouldn't be the first time in American history that a protest started out peaceful and ended otherwise. The difference is what the difference has been all along in this issue . . . it's a matter of scale, like you mentioned. With any other protesters, if things got out of hand, maybe some rocks get thrown, a few windows smashed, some cars vandalized. But when we're talking about mutants with extremely potentially destructive superhuman powers, suddenly that couple of rocks becomes dead U.S. soldiers. It's the NRA on steroids. It's not just that these people are mad and have guns. It's that these people are mad and have the potential destructive power of a bunker full of nukes."

"And yet . . . and yet, hang on just a second . . . with all this destructive power, and, as you mention, reasons to be very angry, the only thing that seems to have been destroyed is their own house. Does that sound aggressive to you?"

"Dead. US. Soldiers. To me, the words "dead US soldiers" sound _very _aggressive. We already have six Marines confirmed dead, and seven more in critical condition, and that's only what's been reported so far. There are fighting men and women who died in the line of duty this morning, and you're honestly sitting here arguing that the people responsible for their deaths had a right to kill them?"

"It all comes back to what started this. If this started out as an arrest attempt that turned into a battle, then I completely agree with you, it's outright murder, and my kingdom to anyone who will bring me the head of an Xavier mutant on a stick. But if this was a preemptive military strike . . . and no one has told us otherwise yet . . . well, the Marines come busting into my house in the middle of the night, and I'm gonna start shooting. That's a right. That's a Second-Amendment-protected right."

"Not if it's government personnel! No one has the right to shoot a cop. The same applies to a soldier, particularly here, when these soldiers were acting in a law-enforcement capacity. Like it or not, mutant registration is law now, and by refusing to register these people were breaking the law."

"You _assume_ these troops were at that house in a law-enforcement capacity. You have no way of knowing that."

"It's a reasonable assumption, in the circumstances. What else would they be doing there?"

The channel switched again, to an anchorwoman in a newsroom. Over her left shoulder was a graphic of a coiled strand of DNA, with the words _Mutant Shootout_ splayed across it. Across the bottom of the screen ran the words _Six Marines Dead After Confrontation with Xavier Institute_.

"I've just been handed this report . . . US Senator Graydon Creed has announced that there will be a press conference this afternoon at 5:00 p.m. to provide more information on the violent encounter this morning in Bayville, New York. That's going to be held in the White House press room . . . We will interrupt our regular programing to bring that to you live. So that's five o'clock, Eastern Daylight Time. In other news . . ."

Professor Xavier passed his hand over the controls one more time, blacking out the screen.

_Six marines dead._ Since it had happened, Scott been moving too fast to think too much, but in this moment of silence his whole awareness jolted back. The library, illuminated by stripes of ruby light and dripping blazes of neon orange—the carpet shuddering under his feet with every move Colossus made—the choking, salty smell of gunpowder and the painful percussion of each shot against his eardrums—and the hiss-and-squish sound of Wolverine's claws finding their targets. He'd known those men were going to die when he'd zeroed in on them and flicked open his visor. And he'd done it anyway. Six marines dead.

_This can't happen ever again. Not to me, not to them. This stops here. I owe those men a lot more than that._

_ "_All right," he announced, and he was startled by his own voice—it sounded too blunt, too detached and professional and determined, to belong to him. "We've got the whole world looking at our house. I'll turn myself in, and we'll have the court case we need."

All three of his teachers whipped around to stare at him. "What?" Storm demanded.

"I'll do it at the press conference. With cameras running, there's no way they'll get away with locking me up in some hidden prison. They'll have to give me a trial."

"But Scott—your eyes." Professor Xavier's voice was deep and serious. It was the tone of voice he used to keep reckless people from doing foolish things. Scott had often overheard it through doors and around corners, usually addressed to Logan. It hadn't been used on him in a long time. "This legal battle could take months, and it's not unlikely that your visor would be taken away from you for at least part of that."

"I can keep my eyes closed. I've done it before."

"The risks are too great. One slip, and—"

"I _know_ what happens if I make one slip, Professor."

"Someone else should do this."

"Who? Who am I gonna send in? Who'm I gonna order to do this in my place?" Scott held up a hand and started counting off on his fingers. "Kurt and Piotr aren't U.S. citizens. Rogue's got as much chance of hurting somebody as I have. So does Gambit, and besides, he can't afford to have a criminal record. You, Professor, can't be exposed as a mutant. Storm already _does_ have a criminal record, and so does Logan."

"I stole to survive when I was a child!" Storm protested. "That's hardly a criminal record."

"They'll use it against you. And Hank . . ."

"Fuzzy and blue, I know," Hank acknowledged.

"The younger students are all minors. The only people who could possibly do this are me, Kitty, and Jean, and I am _not_ sending Kitty."

"If Jean were here," Storm observed, "she would never let you go."

"Why do you think I'm doing it when Jean's gone?"

"I hate to be the devil's advocate, but Scott does have a point," Hank interjected. "In a war of public opinion, what better defendant could you have than a white, middle-class, suburban American, orphaned and handicapped . . . no offense, Scott. We need to put a face on mutants, and he might have the best chance of moving the public's opinion in our favor."

"The public's opinion is less important than the opinion of a jury. Right now, we have no way of proving that we didn't start this conflict. Everything we could have used . . . the security cameras, the physical evidence . . . is in their hands. It's our word against theirs."

"We can steal the camera records back."

"I'd have destroyed them by now, if I were they," Beast pointed out.

"Destroyed what?" asked a new voice. Everyone turned to see Forge poking his head through the doorway.

"Forge!"

Considering this permission to enter, Forge walked in, followed by Jubilee, Tabitha, Rahne, and Magneto.

"That was fast," Hank observed. "Are you four okay?"

"Yeah," said Jubilee. She made eye contact with Scott and mouthed, _MAGNETO?_

Scott gave her a slow, deliberate nod, that without words managed to convey _Tell me about it._

"Can you guys believe this place? This is SO COOL!" Forge announced.

"I'm glad you're having fun, Forge," Scott told him, his voice full of resigned long-suffering.

"_Yeah_," Forge agreed. Irony was not his strong suit. "So what got destroyed?"

"The house security camera records," said Hank. "Without them, we'll have a devil of a time proving what happened this morning."

"The security cameras?" Forge asked, sounding hurt. "What about the secondary system?"

Every eye was suddenly on him.

"What secondary system?" Scott asked warily.

"The secondary security camera network. The one I installed when I put the system in."

"Wait . . . you put another security camera system in, _and you didn't tell us about it_?"

"I _did_ tell you about it! I said I installed a TX-54370 sub-relay on an independent power source with non-network black box style storage system, but it was gonna be low resolution feed 'cuz I didn't have room under the Professor's office for anything higher capacity. And you said fine."

Of course he'd said 'fine.' When Forge started going on like that, there was nothing else to say. "Can we get those camera records back?"

"Yeah, in theory . . . but you can't network into the computer 'cuz it's not hooked up to anything. It's gotta be copied manually off the hard drive."

"Where's the hard drive?"

"In the root cellar."

"We have a root cellar?"

"Underneath the desk in my office," said Professor Xavier. "That wing is the oldest part of the house. It's a trap door, but I'd nearly forgotten it was there."

"But if you want copies of what happened this morning, you'd better get 'em fast," Forge added. "The system's only got twenty-four hours' worth of storage space. Anything older than that gets erased."

"So we've got to get into a house crawling with U.S. military and copy off all these files before three o'clock tomorrow morning?"

"Yep."

"Okay." Scott turned to the other teachers. "Well, somebody better go tell Gambit."


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

* * *

Gambit was just finishing sorting the hot, clean silverware when the click of steel on steel announced that Magneto was back from the planet's surface.

He and Piotr exchanged glances. There was no one in this part of the station that Magneto might want to talk to . . . except the two of them. And the big question was what he might want to say.

"Oh, good," he observed, upon entering the kitchen. "You're both here. That's convenient."

"Need somethin', sir?" asked Gambit. He, unlike everyone else on the team, wasn't conditioned to fear Magneto, but he did know a dangerous man when he saw one, and had the sense to give due deference.

"A word," said Magneto. "I seem to remember that when last we met, I still owed you two something like three months of unpaid wages for services rendered."

"Three and a half," said Gambit.

"Of course. Well, in our present circumstances, I don't think that money would be very useful to you, so if you'd permit, I'd like to pay you by other means."

"We don' take coupons."

This elicited the tiniest hint of a smile. Magneto turned first to Colossus, who'd been standing, silent and grim, next to his teammate. "Colossus. If I were to offer you my solemn word that hereafter, your mother, father, and younger sister would never come to any harm by me or any means of mine, would you consider yourself fairly paid?"

He saw Piotr's back and neck stiffen in surprise. If that promise was worth anything, it was worth a lot; Piotr's family were the leverage Magneto had used to control him for over two years.

"Would you keep such a promise?" Piotr demanded.

"I have flaws enough, but this is not one of them. They are safe from me forever."

Piotr nodded. "Then I would consider myself fairly paid, yes."

"Good. Then our affairs are settled."

"Yes, sir." Piotr hesitated, then added, "Thank you."

Magneto nodded. "Your teammates are in the gymnasium, on the bottom floor, if you want to know."

The message was clear: he wanted to conduct his business with Gambit alone. Piotr took the hint. After a glance at Gambit, and a nod that all was well, he left the room.

"Now, then. Gambit. What about you?"

Gambit shrugged with his good arm. "Y'got me, sir. Up until yesterday, I had fairly well anythin' I'd ever wanted."

"Yesterday was a very different day, though, wasn't it?"

"_C'est certain._"

Magneto looked him up and down. "I noticed this morning, when you arrived, that you were missing something I'd given you."

Gambit nodded. Involuntarily, his left hand reached for the side of his coat, where his staff had hung. "It got destroyed. In de fight."

"Indeed. Then maybe I can provide you with something useful, after all."

There was a magnetic hum, and the high moan of twisting metal. The floor underneath Gambit's feet moved. He caught his balance as the metal square on which he was now standing moved steadily but quickly upward. Below him, the hole he'd left in the floor sealed itself.

Magneto was floating, too, keeping pace with him. Above their heads, the ceiling opened up, stretching a hole in itself to let them through. They drifted into a plain, dark dormitory room with two bare twin beds, then up through that as well into another, larger dorm boasting three two-level bunks. Above that was a large, dimly lit office. The floor closed behind them, and Magneto set him down.

Like the conference room several levels below, this place had a window, looking down onto the planet below. They were keeping pace with the eastern seaboard, Gambit noticed. Below, he could see the various irregular levels of the Avalon station. They got larger as they went down.

"And de boss gets de penthouse," Gambit observed neutrally.

"This way." Magneto led him through one of the doorways that led off the office. Gambit followed him into a room full of filing cabinets. One whole wall was covered in square metal drawers, but none of them had handles. As Gambit came closer, he realized they weren't even drawers: just raised squares in the metal, with serial numbers stamped into them.

One of them slid open. Okay, drawers after all; just ones nobody else could get into without a blow torch. Out of its shadowy recesses floated a plain, gray lump of metal.

Magneto narrowed his eyes at it, concentrating. The lump rippled in response, then stretched out, twisting around itself into one long coil almost as long as Gambit's wingspan. The width evened out, forming a cylinder. A new staff.

Gambit reached out his hand. Mangeto let the gleaming weapon fall.

It was heavier than he expected, heavier than his old one had been. And harder. Gambit gave the staff an experimental twirl, flicking it from one hand to the other as it circled around his back and over his head. He brought it to a stop with one end slamming between his shoulder blades, and was almost startled by how hard it hit.

"Do you approve?"

Gambit flipped it out to where he could see it again and studied the center of the staff. In the same spot as the last one was the near-invisible button that extended and retracted the telescoping sections, depending on whether he rocked his thumb forward or back against it. But on the opposite side was another button, a new one.

He shot an enquiring glance at Magneto. "What's dis?"

"Try it."

Remy dug his finger into the button.

With a familiar, high, almost sweet metallic ring, a curved blade flipped out of each end of the staff. Each was a foot long, with a razor-sharp edge along both the inside and outside of the crescent.

Remy held the staff out with both hands. "I don'need dese. Take 'em off."

"Someday you may want them," Magneto answered.

"_Take 'em off_," Gambit repeated. When Magneto gave him no response, he glared, retracted the blades, and collapsed the staff. "Fine. I get Forge t'cut 'em off when he got a minute."

"He won't be able to."

Gambit looked his former boss up and down, tested the weight of the staff in his hands, tapped it with a fingernail to hear it ring. Frowning, he demanded, "Dis adamantium?"

"It is."

Gambit held it out. "I appreciate de gesture, Boss, but all I want is my three months' wages. I got no interest in bein' indebted to you."

"Don't worry," Magneto assured him. "I haven't given you anything so expensive as to be irreplaceable. I know where I can always get more."

* * *

"So where are we going, exactly?" Jean asked Logan, after a long stretch of no helpful communication from him. "And who are we trying to find there?"

"Washington."

"State, right?"

"DC."

"Are you serious?"

Silence.

"We're going to DC? Into the lion's den?"

"No choice. We've gotta find someone. Nick Fury."

"Fury? Your military contact?"

"Former. We're not on speaking terms right now. I called him a few weeks back, to ask for his help giving us a heads-up if things got ugly."

"From the way last night worked out, I'm guessing he didn't want to help us."

"No, he did. If I spilled my guts about X-23. You remember her. The kid."

"I remember. But didn't she . . . that thing with HYDRA . . . ?"

"On the official paperwork, yeah. But she's still alive, and I know it, and Fury knows it. He wants to nab her before Creed can. And I'd rather that nobody nabbed her. But there's one problem: I don't know where she is, either."

"So we need to know what Fury knows."

"Yeah."

"Well, why go to Washington?" Jean lifted the Cerebro helmet from its place under the control panel.

"Good luck. Everybody in Fury's outfit gets trained in telepathic resistance. No way you can crack his head from this far away, even with Cerebro."

"Watch me." Jean slipped the helmet over her head and closed her eyes. "Can you give me an image of him, please?"

She felt Logan's hazy and generally uncooperative mind open up a little, showing her the face of a grim, serious career soldier with a patch over one eye. She took the image and sank with it into the complicated telepathic/technological maze that was Cerebro. It was easy enough to extend its range down to the planet below, where every human mind blazed like a light with a voice. But she was nowhere near DC yet. She took a deep breath and stretched.

Too far. She could feel her head starting to throb. With a twist of concentration akin to doing two different tasks with two different hands, she reached inside her skull with her TK to feel where the pressure was building up. Just a little bit of a squeeze . . .

The ache receded—still present, but manageable, as long as she didn't lose her concentration. She kept breathing and extended farther. Aloud, she asked, "Is he a mutant?"

"No."

Dang. Cerebro had been built first, and primarily, as a mutant-locator. Ordinary humans were harder to find. "Do you know where he might be?"

Logan rattled off the address of SHIELD headquarters. "He'll figure I'm coming after him. That's their securest facility."

"We need some Google maps in this thing," Jean complained.

She could hear Logan chuckle. "Can you open your eyes?"

"Um . . ." She was already trying to process a lot of information from her TK and her telepathy; throwing in another sense would be difficult. "I think so. For a second."

"I've got a map on the screen."

She edged her eyes open. The map was there, drawing a neat red line between the spot over which they were flying and the front door of SHIELD headquarters. It brought order to the chaos in her brain, showing her where to go, the cluster of minds on which she needed to focus.

"I got him," she announced, her voice breathy from effort and concentration. "He knows I'm in here . . ."

"It's okay. He would have known anyway."

"Almost . . . dang, he's good, he's fighting me."

"Hurry up. He's probably going for a sedative to knock himself out before you can get what you want."

"Got it." She cut the connections to Cerebro, opened her eyes, and gently released the containing pressure on her headache. The pain was still present, but barely noticeable; reading in the car gave her worse headaches than that. "I got it all. Swing west-northwest."

Logan obediently brought the chopper around.

"Last year she hit five facilities in the U.S. and Canada, one in Russia, and one in Poland, inside a four-month period. They were all places that you'd lived, or been involved with somehow. When they had records on you, she copied them or stole them. The last hit was in early October, a base in northern Ontario."

"I know the place."

"After that, the action died down and they kind of lost her scent. As it were."

Logan was silent for a minute. Then he demanded, "When were you gonna tell me you could do that?"

"Do what?"

"That's gotta be five times farther than you ever reached in your life, even on the big Cerebro at the house. How'd you get that kind of range, and why the . . ." He caught himself, swallowed the profanity she could see fighting to tack itself onto the sentence, and finished, "and why didn't you let anybody know about it?"

Jean felt her head turn away, involuntarily, as though she were ashamed. "Scott knows."

"Oh, _Scott_ knows."

He'd slipped; there'd been tangible jealousy in his voice. "Yes."

"And the pair of you decided to just keep it to yourselves, huh?"

"When was I gonna tell you, Logan? When do you talk to me?"

The accusation hit home. He hadn't talked to her, outside of common civilities and strictly necessary business talk, in months. He didn't respond to her question.

Guilt flooded through Jean's brain and bloodstream. She was fine with yelling at Logan when he had the decency to yell back, but she'd drawn blood with that last barbed comment, and she hated to see him bleed. She lowered her voice and let the issue drop. "Everyone's been so . . . _absorbed_, with mutant registration and wondering what was going to happen. I never really found a good time to show off my new parlor trick. I didn't mean to keep it a secret. I just didn't have anyone else to talk to."

No response. Logan's eyes scanned the air in front of the windshield, watching Velocity push shreds of mid-afternoon clouds out of her way.

"Logan?"

Under his breath, half to himself, he asked, "What're you lookin' for, Kid? Why not just come to me? You know where I sleep. What're you after?"

Jean sat back in her chair and rubbed her shoulder where the harness strap had been digging into it. The subject had been dropped; on they went. "If I were her, what would I want?"

This caught Logan's attention; he turned his head to watch her out of the corner of his eye.

"I've gotten my payback on the people who made me what I am. But what else have I got? No family to go to, no hometown, not even a name. My whole history is project files that went down with the HYDRA ship. I wanted those to disappear. But now I've got nothing, no tie to anybody in the whole world . . . except you."

"But she's not coming to me," Logan reminded her.

"She's not looking for you. She's looking for herself. Think about it. You're like . . . _don't_ take this the wrong way, Logan, but you're like her father. At least the closest thing she's gonna get to family. And she needs a family history to figure out who she is. It's the same way Kurt was so fascinated with Mystique. She needs to know who you are and where you come from. Which is reason enough to avoid you; you wouldn't tell anybody that if they stuck splinters under your fingernails."

"I got my reasons."

"Yeah," Jean sighed. "I know you do." She shook her head and continued, "So the best thing for her to do now is to try retracing your footsteps . . . she what she can learn from the places where you've been."

Logan appeared to be thinking this over. Jean sat back and let him think.

"Makes sense," he allowed at last.

"Thank you." Jean nodded her head in as much of a graceful, acknowledging bow as she could manage while still strapped into the co-pilot's seat. "It doesn't tell us where she is now, though."

"Yeah, it does." Logan leaned forward and adjusted a few things on the control panel, re-defining their flight path. "It just doesn't make us happy about it."

* * *

The X-Men had staked claims to the last three dorm rooms at the end of the twisting, many-cornered hallway on the third level of the Avalon station. The hall entrance was the only door Scott had seen so far with a lock, a palm scanner. He'd checked the computer logs of who was authorized to enter: his whole team was there, and all of the Brotherhood guys. Sabertooth was conspicuously absent, which gave him some comfort. At least they had a place to hide from _something_.

The first of the X-men's dorms was for the younger boys; their pajamas and spare uniforms lay on bare, unmade mattresses, and off-white sheets and scratchy, industrial yellow blankets were piled on the floor. The girls, across the hall, had taken the trouble to make up four of the beds. One bunk, upper and lower, probably belonged to Rogue and Kitty, respectively; the lower bunk opposite had to be Amara's. The other bottom bunk, by the door, had Jean's carefully-folded pajama shirt on the pillow. No bunk for Storm. With her claustrophobia, there was no way she could even walk into a windowless room this small, much less sleep there.

Come to think of it, Scott wasn't too sure he could sleep in here, either. Good thing he'd probably be sleeping in prison tonight.

The last room had been taken over by the older boys. Scott chose the lower bunk next to the door, the one that mirrored Jean's. He didn't bother with the blankets; just tossed his blood-spattered t-shirt and shorts onto the bare mattress. He had no clothes beyond those and the uniform on his back. That'd have to be dealt with before this plan got set into motion. He wasn't getting into a national press conference wearing his training uniform. And showering and shaving might end up being a good idea, just for the sake of not looking like a crazy person on national tv.

He just had to finish training, leave everything as organized as he could, and get out of here before Jean and Logan could get back and stop him. Because they could, and they would. He was lucky Professor Xavier hadn't called them back already to do just that.

He emerged into the hall and turned to weave his way back to the stairs. On either side of the hallway, more dorm room doors stood like guards. There were a lot of them. How many people was Magneto planning on housing up here?

One of the doors moved. Scott jumped backward, giving himself more reaction space, and bringing his hand to the control on his visor.

Not Sabertooth. Just Lance.

Scott dropped his hand and the battle-ready tension in his spine, letting out his breath in one relieved rush. "Scared the living daylights out of me, Alvers."

"Likewise," Lance answered; he was breathing hard, too. His was still a little bit pale, but the seasickness drugs seemed to have helped.

Scott nodded at the door Lance had emerged from. "That your guys's room?"

"Yeah." Lance pointed at the door behind Scott. "Wanda's got that one."

"Okay. Hey, if you need anything, the team's gonna be all down at the end there."

Lance made a half-hearted attempt at a smile. "What we need is some better mattresses. Those aren't gonna be much better than sleeping on the floor."

"Don't think we can help you there. Ours looked pretty awful, too." Scott twisted his neck, stretching the aching muscles. Judging from Lance's half-slouched posture, his back was killing him, too, and that was more than the two of them had had in common for years. "So is the Brotherhood coming to training?"

Lance shrugged. "Doubt it. I dunno if you've met us, but we're not really the 'training' kind."

"Well, _you _used to do okay at it."

"That was then."

_Before Kitty dumped him,_ Scott finished silently. He sighed. "Look, Lance, I know you and your guys are none of my business. But . . . all the Brotherhood has now is each other. And whether or not you want to team up with the X-Men, you're going to have to team up with yourselves. All those guys . . . Blob and Toad and even Pietro. . . they need someone, a leader, to hold them together through whatever's going to happen. And they're not gonna take me, so it's gonna have to be you."

Lance looked up at him, incredulity sneaking out from behind the hair that fell over his forehead and his eyes. Scott backed off. "Sorry. Like I said . . . none of my business. I've got to go train my team." He turned and headed for the gym. "Later."

"Yeah," Lance called back.

* * *

"You'll have to be back downstairs soon," Magneto told Gambit. "It sounded as though your team had a job for you. They'll wonder where you are."

"Dey always wonder," Gambit said, nonchalant. "What's de job?"

"High-security house breaking, from what I gathered."

"Sounds like fun."

"They're fortunate to have you. Your skills and your powers must be a great asset to Xavier and his team."

"Yeah, well . . . you'd know."

"I would. I certainly paid enough for those skills. Though I must admit that I got my money's worth. I imagine that since taking your Master's Mark, your rates have gone up."

"You heard about that?" Gambit had to fight to keep himself from grinning. Having a rep that big was no bad thing.

"So did a lot of people. I was impressed."

_"Je vous remerci."_

"So just how much are you charging Charles?"

"Why?" Gambit shot Magneto a canny, sideways glance. "Looking t'outbid him?"

"Idlest curiosity. Charles has the gift of inspiring loyalty, something I've never been able to master. I'm interested to know what he did to win yours. Colossus I can understand; he's an idealist. But for such a cool-headed capitalist as yourself to join himself to Charles Xavier's crusade . . . that is a great surprise. I'd like to know how he did it."

Gambit shrugged, a self-congratulating smile teasing onto his face. "Red-headed bait."

"The girl?"

"Since you care t'put it like dat, _ouais._ _La fille."_

"So not a capitalist after all. A hedonist."

Gambit let a smile quirk up the corner of his mouth, but denied nothing.

"And now that you have her?"

"'Now dat I have her' . . . what?"

"Why do you stay? One only has to look at Rogue to see that she would follow you anywhere you chose to go. What, then, is keeping you with Charles Xavier? I find it hard to believe that you espouse his cause."

"_Patron, _I don' do causes. You, him, Ghandi, Hitler . . . all de same to me. I'm a LeBeau. I learned my cause from my father. Protect your own. Go wid' your gut. Let de rest of de world do as it please."

"Simplistic, but practical."

"Gets me by."

"But I would think, if a man's first priority were to, as you say, protect his own, that such a man wouldn't take lying down what happened last night. A home and property pillaged, its rightful owners lucky to escape with their lives. Storm shot out of the sky like a game bird. Bobby left to drag his bleeding body to the grave. Sam so traumatized that he snuck back to the hangar three times last night to be sick in the Blackbird's lavatory. And the young woman for whom you started this crusade in the first place looking for all the world like her drunken lover's been beating her senseless. As we speak, Charles Xavier is laying plans with his team leaders, discussing how best to set all these people up to take the same abuse again. So what I cannot understand is why a man like you would follow a man like him. Particularly when your powers assure me that you cannot be telepathically coerced into doing anything you don't want to do."

Gambit watched Magneto, wary, careful, waiting for him to push a little bit too far. Behind his eyes he could see it all again: The silver glints of Wolverine's claw points in the dark, the way Shadowcat's hands shook as she tried to hold onto Velocity's steering yoke, how Cyclops recoiled from the sprays of blood that slashed across his face and his t-shirt. And he could hear Rogue's mental voice, exhausted and disoriented and hurt and sick, insisting _Ah kin do it_ as she dragged herself back into the air to fulfill the orders Professor Xavier had given her. But he could also see where Magneto wanted to lead him, and he didn't like being led.

"If you're waitin' fo' me to stab Xavier in de back and start towin' yo' line again, best get a comfy chair, 'cuz it'll be awhile."

"I'm not waiting for _you_ to do anything. All I have to wait for is the day that Xavier's beloved, _civilized_ human race stabs him. And when that day comes, I want to know who I will be up against. Cyclops, for example. Will he see the outcome through without Charles to guide him?"

"Don' write him off. Scott may look like a golden retriever, but he'll fight like a pit bull. I never seen him start one single thing and not see it through to de end."

"And where he goes, Jean Grey goes, I assume."

"I assume. I wouldn't lay money on Colossus, either. If you've really taken his family off de table, den he's gone. Xavier's baitin' his trap wid brunettes dese days."

"What about Rogue?"

Gambit felt a hot cascade of anger run under his skin, rising to his eyes and making the color flare a little in warning. There it was: the Too Far. With all the grim finality of the click of a primed nine millimeter, he announced, "Off. Limits."

Magneto raised both his hands, palms forward, out of the folds of his cape, bowing his head in surrender. "I withdraw the question."

Gambit remained motionless, every defense up, his line drawn deep into the sand between them.

The floor under him shuddered. He spared a glance downward and saw a dark square appear around his feet, lowering him back down into the public levels of the station. Within seconds, they were both back where they'd started, in the clean-scrubbed stainless steel kitchen with a dish towel hanging over the sink partition.

"Go find your commander," Magneto ordered. "He has a mission for you."

Gambit nodded. "Yes, sir." He headed for the door, but paused before exiting into the hall. With his left hand, he pulled open his coat. The tip of the staff gleamed at the top of the long inside pocket that had held its predecessor for so many years. "Hey, Boss."

"Yes?"

"Countin' dis one, you only got twenty-nine left to go."

He could see Magneto fighting the question, but in the end he asked it. "Twenty-nine what?"

He let the coat fall closed. "Pieces of silver."

* * *

Author's Notes:

My profoundest apologies for the delay on this chapter! Life caught up with me . . .

French Lesson!

_C'est certain: _That's for sure.

_Je vous remerci_: I thank you. Just like in English, it's a little old-fashioned and grandiose.

_Patron: _Boss.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

* * *

"Well," Kitty observed, trying to look on the bright side, "at least we don't have to do Danger Room drills anymore."

The gym was . . . big surprise . . . bare metal and fluorescent lights. The floor was at least covered wall-to-wall with training mats. But there were no windows, no basketball hoops, no equipment. It was more prison than gym.

Rogue snorted. "Ah'd take the Danger Room any day over bein' up here. Less dangerous." She flicked another glance toward Amara, who was seated at the edge of the gym, still sipping at the mug of tea she'd brought from the dining room. Kitty only noticed because every time Rogue did it, she did it, too. It was making Kitty jumpy . . . or, maybe, everything in general was making her jumpy. She was a jumpy person, and this was not a relaxed and casual day.

"All right, guys! Form up!" Scott's voice, clear, strong, and positive, preceded him into the room. Even though she kind of hated training, Kitty felt herself relax the tiniest bit as she stepped into her 'spot' in a grid formation with the rest of the team. Scott's voice telling them to form up was so wonderfully, joyfully _normal_. Thank goodness for Scott.

"Okay," Scott began. "We're all thinking it, so we might as well say it. What did we have yesterday morning that we don't have today?"

"Homework!" Bobby yelled from the back of the room. Kitty, and a lot of other people, made undignified snorting noises as they tried to keep their faces looking appropriately grim and serious.

"If that's what you think, young man, you're sadly mistaken," said Hank. He and Storm were sitting out the drill with Amara, Storm with her injured leg stretched out in front of her.

"What else?" asked Scott.

"Windows," said Rogue. She'd gotten a lot more bugged about enclosed spaces since she'd learned to fly—this place had to be driving her nuts.

"Our house," said Roberto.

"A planet," said Amara, sounding queasy.

"Half a box of A&W root beer," said Sam, forlornly.

"Contact with our parents."

"A future."

"A swimming pool."

"A safe place to sleep."

"Mp3 player."

"You're all forgetting the most important thing," Scott told them. "My car."

There were nods of assent around the room. No denying that it had been a nice car. Kitty hoped, for Scott's sake (and Gambit's and Logan's and Sam's and for anyone else who was secretly in love with that car) that the soldiers would take good care of it and not let the paint get scratched.

"And what did we have yesterday morning," Scott continued, "that we do still have today?"

This one was a little bit harder. People took a second to think about it. Finally, Bobby offered, "We've still got the X-Jet. That's something. And our uniforms and stuff. And hey, I'm not dead, so a million points for that."

"We've still got the team," said Kitty. "I mean, we're still together. We didn't scatter and run away, and we didn't leave anybody behind. That's a pretty big deal, right?"

"Yes, it is," Scott told her. "It's a really big deal."

"We still got our powers," said Rogue. "Ah'd like to see 'em try'n take those away from us."

"And we've still got our freedom!" said Roberto. It came out louder than he seemed to have meant it too; he'd watched Braveheart more than was good for him. In a more subdued tone, he added, "Kind of, I guess."

"Yeah," Scott agreed. "I'm no more excited about being up here than you guys are, but let's face it . . . it's a lot better than where we could have been this morning."

"We've got our training," said Ray. "We practice, every day, for hours, on how to fight and work together and take care of each other, and . . . and, well, knowing those things might get to be pretty important, things going the way they are."

There was a sound by the doorway. Kitty whipped around, as did everybody else. Lance Alvers, who'd been trying to slip in unnoticed, failed to do so. His brown-eyed glare daring anyone to comment, he took a spot behind the back row of X-Men. Toad, Blob, Pietro, and Wanda followed behind him.

Kitty felt a warm, excited shiver run from the soles of her feet all the way up to the roots of her hair. Lance was here. He caught her eye as he looked over the team, and an embarrassed little smile quirked up the corner of his mouth. Without warning, her heart gave a real, physical little stutter inside her chest.

"Good to see you guys," Scott told them. There was no trace of gloating in his tone or in his expression. "Okay, everybody, we're starting off with some tai chi forms. Keep your focus and pay attention to your breathing."

Kitty straightened up and took a deep breath. She was glad Logan wasn't here to run this drill; he always knew when she wasn't concentrating, and this morning, tai chi was the last thing on her mind.

* * *

"Gambit. There you are."

Gambit looked up from the engrossing work of making his bed . . . or, at least, tossing sheets and a blanket onto a mattress, making sure they were all fairly flat and stacked in the right order . . . to meet the eyes of Professor Xavier in the doorway.

"Here I is," Gambit agreed. "What'd you need, Professor? Trainin' over already?"

"Not quite," Xavier answered. "Will you come downstairs with me? I need your help."

Gambit stood up and followed.

Xavier's power wheelchair was back on the planet with the rest of their crap. His new ride was just the emergency backup from Velocity, a plain, bare metal frame that could fold up and be stored without needing too much space. And he had to work to move it. His arms forced the wheels forward in a steady, unconscious rhythm. He got a lot of distance out of each push; from the waist up, Xavier was as well-conditioned as any of his students.

"We've actually got rather a lot that falls into your field of expertise," Xavier qualified. They rounded a corner Gambit hadn't explored yet and found an elevator. The station was handicapped accessible; Magneto had been expecting Charles to come here. "You may be very busy very soon."

"Well, y'know my rates." Even as the words fell from his mouth, they _bothered_ him. When had he ever cracked a joke to Professor Xavier about being paid? To ease his own discomfort, he added, "I'll do most any'tin' for free Diet Coke."

Xavier chuckled. He hadn't picked up on the glitch; Remy took a second to once again be very, very thankful for that telepathic block around his head. "Scott has a plan," he started, and explained the outline of what they were going to do as Gambit followed him back to the conference room.

"So y'need me to get Four-Eyes into de press conference so he kin get arrested on camera?"

"For a start, yes. But if he's to have any hope of winning a trial, we need the records of our surveillance cameras, which are still in the house. Do you think you could come up with a way to get them out of there?"

"No problem."

"I don't want you to accept this assignment without thinking, Gambit. The mansion is surrounded by U.S. military, and—"

"Professor Xavier," Gambit interrupted, politely, firmly, and with the faintest tone of reproach that implied he'd taken insult, "I'm a Master T'ief of de Guild, an' a LeBeau to boot. I kin break into _my own house_."

"All the same, I would be happier if you'd agree to take Shadowcat with you."

"Kitty?" Gambit took a second to consider the possibilities, then grinned. "Professor, you give me Kitty Pryde, an' I steal you de keys of heaven offa Saint Peter's belt."

"Just the security footage will do fine."

* * *

Rogue had had the good sense to bring a towel down to the gym, to mop her face after training, but she handed it off to Kitty rather than use it herself. She hadn't pushed herself very hard in the drills. Soreness was something she hadn't had to deal with in a long time, and she wasn't enjoying her re-acquaintance with physical pain.

"Okay, next mystery," Ray announced. "Where do they keep the showers in this place?"

"Let's find them fast," said Jamie. "I feel disgusting."

"You smell disgusting," Ray told him.

"You smell really disgusting," Amara affirmed. "Can some non-disgusting person give me a hand? My head's spinning."

Sam offered her a hand. "Best you're gonna get," he told her cheerfully, pulling her to her feet. "Where to?"

"Back upstairs. The Professor's calling me. Thanks, Cannonball."

Rogue hesitated as Amara and the other younger students filed out of the room. Scott, the other teachers, and Kurt were already gone, along with Betsy and most of the Brotherhood. But Kitty was _lingering_. She was trying to be subtle about it, carefully and nonchalantly mopping her neck and face with the towel. Which would have been fine, except that Lance, at the drinking fountain on the other side of the room, was lingering, too.

Dang it. Rogue, fiercely protective of her own privacy, had the class to afford it to others (unlike some people she could name), but she didn't like Lance and didn't like that Kitty did. But Kitty was a grown-up and didn't need a chaperon. And, added a mercenary part of her that she wasn't sure she liked, if they were all going to be stuck on this station together for who-knew-how-long, they'd have to find a way to keep Lance and the Brotherhood under control, and Kitty could be very useful that way.

But Amara was the one Logan had told her to keep an eye on, and Amara was walking away, leaning on Sam's shoulder.

"You be careful," she breathed to Kitty, shooting a glance in Lance's direction. "Ah don't trust him."

"Who?" asked Kitty, opening her eyes wide in what she seemed to think was a look of innocent confusion.

"Don't even," Rogue warned. She left, not bothering to close the door behind her.

Sam and Amara were already on their way back upstairs, the way they'd come down from breakfast. Feeling like a stalker, Rogue followed behind them, at least until she saw them enter the dining room and heard Professor Xavier say, "Sit down, Amara." She was safe enough in there.

Rogue turned to follow the others up to the dormitory level, then hesitated. Dirty as she was, she didn't want a shower that badly. What she really, truly wanted was a few minutes alone.

It had been less than twelve hours since this whole mess had started, and every second of that time she'd been intently focused on some task or completely unconscious. It still felt like a dream, or a movie with the volume turned up too loud. She felt like she was playing a character in somebody else's life, somehow disassociated with the self that had to be still in bed in New York, dreading the last-minute homework-finishing rush that would arrive with the break of day.

She zipped back down the stairwell and let her feet drop underneath her outside the carpeted room where they'd all slept. Even that, now, was just a fond and distant memory. Logan and Jean gone, Sabertooth breathing down their necks, Scott stressed and worried and in over his head, Kurt tight-lipped and defensive . . . it had been a hard morning. She missed the brief hours she'd spent sleeping here, listening to the regular, reassuring breathing of her team.

She could smell blood in here. A side effect of having Logan in her head so frequently for so long was a hypersensitivity to scent. She couldn't smell with any more detail than an ordinary human, but she noticed it more. There'd be Logan-blood and Bobby-blood and Storm-blood and Gambit-blood in here, and the dried brown blood of the soldiers on the rear guard's clothes and skin and hair. And under it all was the cold, silvery, sterile stainless-steel smell of the recirculated air. Never so acutely had she missed her daily morning 'run' over the waters of the Atlantic.

She could see the Atlantic out the picture window. She walked across the room to stand right up next to the glass — or whatever transparent material was holding back the vacuum of space. It was glaring bright noon over North America; the sun was behind them. Rogue wondered absently if Avalon was casting a tiny shadow somewhere in Indiana.

She felt gooseflesh rise on her arms, and wrapped them around herself. Temperature didn't bother her, but this place, this shining, silent prison that was their only sanctuary from the ripped-up wreck of their home, _felt _cold . . . not just on her skin, but deep down in her heart and her gut.

She heard a footstep behind her on the short, dense carpet. Remy. Anyone who wanted to do her harm would have been absolutely silent, and anyone else on the team would have been louder. She didn't turn to look at him . . . just let her eyes keep exploring the planet below her as the soft footsteps approached. She felt warm breath in her hair. His big, strong, familiar hands fitted into the curve of her waist and held there for a moment, feeling her abdomen expand and contract as she breathed. Then they slid forward across her stomach, crossing around her, pulling her back until her weight rested against his chest. Her neck settled onto his shoulder, and she leaned her head against his jaw.

"Hey," he murmured, and Rogue closed her eyes, the better to feel the enticing shivers of heat and excitement and safety and happiness that were running along her spine and everywhere she could feel the warmth of him through their uniforms. He was bigger than she was; he breathed slower. She forced herself to slow down, meet his rhythm, inhale and exhale in deep, steady, measured beats. Her heart rate slowed down. She was calmer.

"Hey," she breathed back, her voice slow and languid and dreamy . . . like they were waking up on a Saturday morning with sunlight streaming through the window. She loved how he could make her feel like that, even here, even now. Her eyes drifted open. She was still surrounded by cold steel and cold black space and a cold far-off planet full of cold hateful people, but encircled in Remy's arms everything was warm.

One of his hands slid up to cover hers, coaxing it open so he could press her fingers into his palm. "_Vache sacrée, cherie,_ you freezin'."

"Didn't have time to grab my jacket on the way out."

He brought her hand up to his mouth and breathed on it, chafing the fingers to stimulate blood flow.

"Sure Ah kin just pop back and get it, though," she added. "Ah mean, just look. Not that far. If you squint, you kin see the house from here."

He chuckled, fitting her hand underneath his chin to press against the warmth of his throat. "An' get a good view of de tanks all over our lawn."

"We're probably gonna have to re-sod the whole thing. What a headache. The army better at least pay for the damages."

"Oh, dey will. If dey don' wanna write a check, den maybe dey notice one or two t'ings go missin' in de next couple weeks. Dey'll pay for it. Don' worry."

The arm still around her stomach tightened a little, protective and possessive. Normally, Rogue had no problem with Remy holding her tighter, but without meaning to she flinched and gasped. He loosened his hold at once. "Bruised up?" he asked gently.

She nodded. "Just a little."

He let go of her hand and took her shoulder, gently turning her to face him. His hands met at the base of her throat, where her uniform zipped shut. He took hold of the zipper pull with one hand and the collar of the uniform with the other. Rogue felt her heart speed up, more fear than excitement. She caught one of his hands with hers. "Remy . . ."

"No funny business. I promise. I just wanna see."

He waited a long second, until she gave him a brief, embarrassed nod as permission, then gently drew the zipper straight down to her navel. The sound of the teeth coming apart sliced through the hum of the climate system that was the only other noise in the room. The cool air rushed inside her clothes, raising goosebumps on her skin.

He drew the sides of the uniform apart, exposing her chest and stomach. All she had on underneath was a plain, black Nike jog bra, the same style she always wore for training. For underwear, it covered a lot, but the sense of exposure and vulnerability hit her hard all the same. She felt flushed and almost shaky, and her heart had begun to beat so hard she could _see _it, a tiny flicker of movement in the black fabric.

"Hey," she whispered, following his eyes to their careful examination of her chest, "you said no funny business." A lot of her was afraid that he'd been lying . . . and a part of her almost wished he had been.

His old, wicked smile drew up the corner of his mouth. "Be rude if I didn't stare just a little bit. Don' want you t'think y'ain't got nothin' worth starin' at." His warm red eyes flicked up to meet hers, set to charm her in case she was mad. Then their gaze dropped again, past the bra to the multicolored skin of her upper abdomen.

The patriot had hit her just under the ribcage and plowed her straight backwards into the ground before it exploded. The deep-tissue bruise from the impact was wider than her hand, the top edge of it disappearing under the band of her bra. Most of it was a solid mass of blue-purple, but the edges exploded in riotous swirls of lavender, lime green, jaundice yellow. And punctuating the skin all around it were the smaller, fainter bruises left by the bullets, like the polka dot markings of some new pox.

She heard him suck in his breath between his teeth. His fingers explored the bruise, the touch as light and delicate as if he were handling a top-of-the-line security system or a ticking bomb.

He smiled again, but it was sad, ironic. "You look for all de world like I been beatin' on ya."

"Nah," Rogue rebutted, trying to smile. "Ah'm just clumsy is all."

The eyes flicked up again, flashing a little with intensity that bordered on anger. "Not funny, _chère_."

Rogue dropped her eyes, acknowledging that no, it hadn't been.

The hands fitted into the curves of her waist again, this time under the uniform, and he pulled her gently toward himself. "_Ma chère, ma Rogue, ma bien-aimée_. It'd make a man crazy, seein' his _femme _ripped up like dat."

"It's not that bad," Rogue insisted. "It'll heal. Ah'm lucky it didn't hit high enough t'crack my ribs."

Gambit made a half-hearted attempt at a chuckle, but it resulted in no more than a twitch of his mouth and a contemptuous breath of air. "You're lucky, huh? Dis you bein' lucky?"

"Ah ain't dead. Ah'm with mah team. So yeah. I'm lucky."

One of his hands strayed up to her face, tucking her errant white streak back behind her ear. The backs of his knuckles brushed carefully along her temple, her cheekbone, down to her chin, his eyes noticing every smudge of congealed blood under her skin. "When did you get t'thinkin' dat de universe owed you so little?"

Rogue shifted her head a little, catching his eyes with hers, drawing his attention to her instead of the bruises. "Universe ain't never given me much more," she observed, plainly, without self-pity. She reached up and fitted her hand to his jaw, feeling rough, prickly stubble reach her skin through the fabric of her glove. "Except you."

He took her hand before she could start stroking his face; Rogue felt herself just the slightest bit annoyed at the faint rejection. "An' me, just me, dat's enough for ya? Your friends shot up and your home destroyed and a price on your head . . . none a'dat bothers you, even a little bit? You willin' to just lie down an'take it."

"Ah'm strong enough to take it."

"You shouldn't have to be."

She suddenly found herself with her face trapped between his hands. The gloves were a fine, lightweight knit, just enough to keep his skin off of hers, and she could feel through them the calluses that their constant wearing had yet to erase.

"Rogue," he breathed, drawing her face close to his. "As long as I've known you, the world's thrown everyt'in' it's got at you. An' I've seen you wanna fight. But you bite it back, every time, over an' over again, year after year. Because Charles Xavier told you to."

"Because it's the right thing t'do, Remy. Somebody's gotta be the example."

"For how long? When's it gonna be over, just you and me, safe?"

"Ah dunno. Someday."

"Maybe I don't wanna wait dat long."

He combed all her hair back, the loose mess of curls he always said was so fascinating, and though his touch was still gentle, it was firm now, the muscles of his hand and forearm tense.

"I wish you could _fight_. I wish I didn't have to see you believin' you somehow deserve all dis, like you should have to be humanity's whippin' girl, like dat's _lucky_, like it's _fair_. You got your whole life stolen out from under you. Where's your anger?"

She recoiled a little bit under his grip, tossing her head free. "Of course Ah'm angry! Of course Ah wanna split the heads of the sons'a . . . of the guys that took our home. But we can't fight like that. Y'know we can't. That's just gonna lead t'more fightin', and more fightin', and more people's homes taken and families broke up and lives destroyed. Yeah, Ah want it to stop. Ah want t'be normal and safe. An' if Ah have t'hold my temper 'till the sun goes out t'get it, then that's what Ah'll do." Her hands found the zipper of her uniform and drew it closed as her gaze dropped away from his. The fire in his eyes scared her.

Gambit's hands fell away from her face. "An' how long do we wait, _chère_? When do we decide enough's enough?"

"Ah don't know!" She heard panic edge into her voice, cracking it. "Stop it."

"_Bébé_, Xavier's been tryin' for years to talk himself a world full'a peaceful coexistence. Scott an' Jean been standin' up as examples since dey were kids. Every year more X-Men comin' t'join de team from all over de world. An' when's any of it made de world any better for us? Someday we might all have t'sit down and talk about what we're gonna do if peaceful resistance flat-out don'work."

"It will work."

"How do you know?"

"Ah just do. It has to."

"But you never stopped t'think about what happens if it doesn't."

Rogue recoiled farther, leaving open, cold air between the two of them. She didn't give herself time to think before the next words spilled out of her mouth; they just came, and she knew they were justified. "Has Magneto been talkin' to you?"

"No," he snapped, and it was a lie, and she know it. She caught her breath, and couldn't seem to get it un-caught.

He stopped himself, turned away from her to pull himself together. "Yes," he corrected. "He talked. Paid de stuff he owes me. Asked questions about de team."

"And you _told him_?" If she'd had time to think about it, she'd wonder how she could talk with this pressure building up inside her lungs and throat and heart, no escape for the air and the blood. He'd lied to her. And she wasn't angry . . . she knew anger; anger was her old friend; anger made her blood boil and her breath come in fierce, sharp snorts through her nose. This felt like drowning, in deep, deep water, that blue-black world of crushing pressure farther down than anyone else could dive. He'd lied. He'd slipped, and he'd lied. To _her_.

"Rude t'just stand in silence in front of a man who's been payin' you good wages. I don't hate him, _chère_, an' I ain't scared of him. As long as we all playin' on de same team—"

"We are not on the same team as him! He hurts people!"

"_People_ hurt _us_."

"That don't justify what he does."

"What, savin' all our butts an' givin' us a place to hide? Dat's not strikin' me as destructive behavior. But all dose men an' women who swore to protect de rights of U.S. citizens . . . like _us_, just for an example . . . shot Bobby in de gut _while he was runnin' away_. If I had t'pick my team right now, I wouldn't much want to be teamin' up wid dose people. But if somebody were to say t'me, 'Let's go show 'em who dey messin' wid, let's take back what's ours' . . ."

"You're not thinkin' straight. You're mad."

"_Yes_, I'm mad. An' if you were thinkin' straight, you'd be mad, too."

"Oh, Ah'm the one who's not thinkin' straight, just cuz Ah ain't thinkin' that smashin' a few heads is gonna make everything go back to normal?"

"Well, take a look at where lettin' our own heads be smashed has got us. Dis look like normal to you?" He caught her arm—he was too quick for her; he'd always been—and turned her to the window. Her reflection looked back at her, its face marred and mauled by the purple circles.

"Look at yo'self," he ordered, and his voice was fierce and harsh. "_Look_ at dis. If even one a'dese marks had been my fault, Scott, Logan and Kurt woulda kilt me by now. Dey love you. Dey'd protect you if I hurt you. So who's protectin' you from Xavier when he lines you up to take dis kind of abuse?"

"Ah don't need protectin'."

"_Non_," he snapped, sarcastic. "You just 'clumsy'."

"The professor didn't do this."

"Didn't stop it, though, did he? An' de only reason all dem marks are just bruises an' not big bloody gaping holes is de powers Mystique give you. She's done more lookin' out for your welfare dan Xavier's doin' right now, with him forever takin' de side of dem as keeps doin' dis."

She twisted out of his grip, away from the reflection, to meet his real eyes and the grim set of his mouth and jaw. "Don't you _dare_," she hissed, feeling her teeth grit together, harder than she meant them to, "Don't you _dare_ bring Mystique into this. Don't you start twisting around what Ah say. And don't you say _one more word_ against Professor Xavier."

"Why not? You so scared of de idea dat he might just be plain ol' wrong?"

She was angry now, and the anger was hot and familiar, giving her power but taking away her ability to control it. If she'd been more of the girl Professor Xavier expected her to be, rational and self-disciplined, she would have taken a deep breath, said something like _I know you're angry . . . so am I, and I'm scared, and I don't know what's going to happen but I know that I need you with me if I'm gonna get through it. _She would have remembered that Remy had already had one life cut out from under him, and understood how desperate he was to not let it happen again. She would have remembered that the end of the world was less important to her than Remy being angry at her.

But anger made her think only one thing: _I'm right_. Her tongue wouldn't cooperate, wouldn't frame the unshakable argument that she knew was in there somewhere, the reason that Professor Xavier's way would always be right and Magneto would always be wrong. She knew it was there, but she couldn't quite spit it out correctly, enough to break through his stubbornness and make him understand.

But they were Rogue and Gambit, weren't they? They didn't need words.

She knew absolutely that the second she got through his defenses and made him feel what she was feeling, he'd back down. He had to. He'd absorb her thoughts and her convictions, _becoming_ her a little, the same way that she became anyone she touched, and this argument would be over. So she reached for him, aggressive and fierce, grabbing the front of his uniform and yanking him towards her. He came unresistingly . . . probably so sure that _he_ was right that he just assumed _she'd _be the one whose mind was changed. She planted her lips on his, hard, willing him to swallow up her energy and be changed by it back into the man she knew.

It was as though she'd set herself on fire.

Not nice, exciting, metaphorical fire that people used to describe kisses in silly paperback books. Like actual fire, involving matches and gasoline. It started in her mouth and zapped like an electric shock through every nerve in her body, searing. It tasted like Remy, but it burned, and _hurt_, so intensely that she forgot that she was the one holding onto him and screamed against his mouth for him to let her go.

His hands swept up in a double inside block, pushing her arms out and away, and her hands convulsed open to release the fabric. The kiss broke; she staggered and almost fell. Every muscle trembled. Her lips and cheeks and throat still burned, like the after burn of hot sauce that had been about three alarms too many. She put a hand to her lips and was startled to find them soft; she'd expected blackened flakes of dead skin to crunch onto the tips of her fingers.

Across from her, Remy was leaning on his knees and panting hard. So was she. The magnitude, and the implications, of what had just happened between them were slowly emerging into their minds. But before terror could set in, the thought flashed across Rogue's mind: _You stubborn idiot, this is your fault, you should have listened to me . . . _and as she glared up at him she saw his eyes go hard and cold, like rubies, shutting her out.

He straightened up, getting his breath back, and she saw his left hand unconsciously rise to his face to wipe away the burn on his mouth. Then he turned around and left. Without one word. Without one backward glance.

Rogue dropped onto the carpet and gasped until her head spun.

She knew what needed to be done. Compared to the possibility of losing Remy, personal dignity became a joke. She had to fly after him, right now, find him wherever he tried to hide from her and tell him flat-out that she was sorry, she'd been wrong . . .

But . . . but she wasn't. They'd been fighting about everything Professor Xavier believed in, everything _she_ believed in. If Remy had decided that he liked the idea of Magneto's war than the Professor's dream, could she follow him into the ranks of the villains, fight against her own teammates, just because she loved him?

She'd told him once, twice, a dozen times, that she'd follow him wherever he needed to go. And she had. She'd stolen, sneaked, lied and fought when he'd needed her to. But in the end, she'd always paid for the shoes. She'd always stayed the Good Guy. Could she follow him to the other side of the line, if that was where he chose to go?

No. Of course not. Never in a million years.

But if he went, how in the world was she supposed to live without him?

_You did it before, _said the voice of anger in her head. _Can't you do it again?_

_ No. No. No no no no no no no. I didn't know what living without him even was, before._

_ Rogue._

She sat up straight, swallowing hard and scrubbing imaginary tears from her face. It was Professor Xavier's voice.

_Rogue, Shadowcat, Nightcrawler, I need you in the conference room. And if someone can find Gambit, please; he's shut me out again._

It was just an ordinary telepathic call, not a conference, so she couldn't hear any of the replies. She stood up and checked her reflection in the window. Her skin wasn't burnt, her hair wasn't messed up. Other than the bruises, she looked fine. With any luck, the Professor would be too preoccupied to tell that anything had happened. She scrambled to her feet and swooped out into the hallway, checking both directions to see if Gambit were still out there.

He wasn't. But Sabertooth was.

He was coming from the direction of the vehicle hanger. Rogue stalled in midair, wary. Had he done something to the Blackbird? She hadn't been that far away; she would have heard it if he'd smashed something, and 'rewiring the ignition system' seemed a little too subtle to really be his style.

He smiled at her, and with a shiver down her spine Rogue got a sense of what frozen steaks felt like. "Leave our plane alone," she told him.

"Whatever you say, Princess," he shot back.

Rogue turned and shot up the corridor.

* * *

French Lesson!

_Vache sacrée:_ Holy cow.

_Ma bien-aimée: _My well-beloved.

_Femme: _Woman (also 'wife').

Thank you so much, all my awesome and darling reviewers! You're keeping me going on this massive and overwhelming project . . . I can't tell you how much I appreciate the encouragement, feedback, and support.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

* * *

Remy remembered his father telling him that if he had to tell himself not to panic, it was already too late. This did not stop the chorus of _Don't panic don't panic don't panic_ that was circling through his head.

He couldn't touch Rogue. _He couldn't touch Rogue._

His mouth still stung and smarted, the skin tender like he'd tried to drink a cup of tea just off the boil—or like she'd slapped him full-force. What happened when two true but incompatible ideas tried to occupy the same space at the same time? Well, now he knew. And he didn't know what to do about it. Rogue wouldn't come running after him, willing to surrender her position for the sake of their relationship; she was too stubborn and too proud. And he . . . had he just blown the best thing in his life because Magneto had slipped a few pernicious lies into his ear?

No. They weren't lies. Just very inconvenient truths. Professor Xavier might believe that there'd be a peaceful resolution to the war that had just been launched, human versus mutant, but Remy had seen what scared people could do. There was no compassion when you thought your life was on the line. Maybe the law would be overturned; maybe they'd all shake hands with Senator Creed, accept his embarrassed apology, and go home. But probably not. The more likely outcome was that the U.S. government and its frightened citizens would continue lashing out at the 'mutant threat' however they could, and as soon as the tenuous peace was broken Magneto would lash back at them, and the X-Men would be in the middle of it all, hunted by both sides, Xavier's dream crushed under the brutal necessity of raw survival. It would all be stalemate and destruction if the X-Men held the course they were on.

He could see it. But he knew Xavier never would. Or Cyclops, or Storm. They'd fight to the death . . . which sounded heroic and dramatic, until you got a sense of what 'the death' really meant. Rogue, hero that she was, would follow them without a second thought. But Remy was no hero. His self-preservation instinct was just too strong.

She'd come around. This would blow over. They fought and made up so much it had become a household running joke. In the years they'd known each other, he'd been able to coax and wheedle and cajole her into anything. She was putty in his hands . . .

. . . But it was because she chose to be. His confidence retreated before the memory of the set of her jaw, the flash of her eyes when her mind was made up about something. And her mind had been made up about this since long before she'd ever laid eyes on him. She _loved_ him, but her _loyalty _was to Scott. Charles. Storm. Logan. Kurt. She was an X-Man first. He wouldn't budge her off of that if he fought her for a hundred years.

But with his blood boiling like this, how long could he just keep his head down and defend the people who were stealing from him everything that mattered?

"Gambit?"

He froze. He'd barely realized he'd been moving, but now that he thought about it he must have gone back and forth up this hallway a half dozen times.

"Are you okay?" Kitty was at the head of the hall, where it intersected with a larger corridor. As he whipped around to face her, he relaxed all the muscles of his face, erasing the telltale worry creases between his eyes and the tension around his mouth.

"Yeah," he assured her, calm as a summer's morning by the time they made eye contact. "Just stir-crazy. I like havin' my two ways outta anyplace . . . dis whole setup's a little too enclosed for me."

"Yeah, tell me about it," Kitty said sympathetically. "Did you get the Professor's hail? He needs us in the conference room upstairs."

"Didn'. Thanks." He joined her in the main corridor, and side by side they walked up towards the rendezvous.

"Do you know what's going on?" she asked.

Remy had to take a split-second to re-orient himself to what had been going on before his world exploded. Memories clicked into place, and he answered, "Little bit. De Prof's got a job for us. Could get exciting, but shouldn't be a problem." He snuck a look at her out of the corner of his eye. "How're you holdin' up, _Minou_? You ready to do dis?"

"Yeah, I'm good."

"You were kind of a wreck last night."

This elicited a weak giggle. "I'm . . . less of a wreck. Breakfast helped. And talking to . . . talking to Lance."

Gambit gave her another sideways glance. "You back on speakin' terms wid him?"

"Yeah." Kitty had the decency to look a little ashamed of herself. "I know you don't like him, but, you know, as long as we're all up here and kind of stuck with each other . . ."

"As you please." Twenty minutes ago, he would have been furious—not at her, but at Piotr, whose incessant inaction was rapidly losing Gambit his bet. Now he couldn't muster too much energy to care whether Kitty decided to bestow her affections on Lance or Piotr or even Magneto or Sabertooth. It just wasn't that entertaining anymore. As soon as this thing with Rogue was water under the bridge, he'd pick up that sport again.

_Even if the fight get settled, though, what guarantee do you have that you'll be able to touch her again? The whole arrangement was precarious anyway . . . and that jolt hurt like all hell. . . what if it's broken, what if _we're _broken? Did I just blow my only shot at being with her?_

_ DON'T panic. Stop it._

They'd reached the conference room. Waiting for them were Professor Xavier, Scott, Hank, Kurt, Forge, Amara, and _Rogue_. Gambit gave her a glance-over, on the off chance that she might be ready to throw herself into his arms, possibly with the addition of apologetic tears. Head back, arms folded, back to him, tossing over her shoulder a glance hard as rock and cold as ice . . . nope. Besides, tears weren't really her thing anyway.

"You'll be taking the jet down to the planet," Professor Xavier told them. "Hank is piloting. The five of you who are going into action, we are dropping off in two teams. Rogue and Nightcrawler, we're sending you on extraction." He offered Rogue a sheet of paper. "This is a list of as many mutants as we know how to find in the New England area. Contact as many as you can. Tell them what's happening. If any of them want to evacuate to Avalon, tell them to meet at the boat launch at Foster Pond, in Finger Lakes National Forest, at eleven o'clock on Sunday night."

"Foster Pond, Finger Lakes National Forest, eleven o'clock Sunday," Rogue rattled back.

"We're planning to do several of these runs, but to minimize chances of the military learning the rendezvous point, we'll choose a different location every time. We'll let you know the next meeting on Sunday. Stick together, and stay safe."

"Yes, sir." Rogue folded the paper and brought it to her chest, as though to tuck it into the inside pocket of the jacket she wasn't wearing. Realizing her mistake, she slipped it into the leg pocket on the outside of her thigh.

Gambit was having a hard time concentrating; the briefing was being drowned out by his intense and painful desire to _touch her, right now_ . . . the need to feel her energy pouring inside him, to drain away the stress and anger he could feel radiating off her skin. He curled both his hands into fists, digging his fingertips into his palms, and bit down on his tongue. _Don't do it. You got burned. She'll burn you again; don't think she won't._

"Shadowcat, you and Gambit have two missions. The first is to get Scott to where he needs to be, when he needs to be there. The second is more difficult. You'll be breaking back into the house and copying computer files that we're going to need for Scott's trial."

"What computer files?" Kitty asked.

Forge fielded the question. "Surveillance video. The computer's in a crawlspace under the professor's office, right under the desk. The password's 'buffalo', two fs, one l. There'll be a folder on the desktop called "Data Loop." Just copy it all onto the drive, and then up here I can sort out what we're gonna need."

"Unfortunately," Professor Xavier continued, "since Wolverine took the only Cerebro we've got left, you're going to be doing all of this with no way to contact the team."

"Ain't we got a phone up here?" Gambit asked. She saw Rogue shoot him another glare, and realized his voice had come out more sardonic than he'd meant it to.

"Outbound calls only," said Professor Xavier. "Eric insists. For the continued security of the station, there are scramblers that are constantly changing the number. He, I, and Forge intend to assemble another Cerebro, to the extent that we can, but it will probably take some time and I don't know how much range we'll be able to achieve."

"What about de Cerebro dey got at Muir Island?" Gambit asked, carefully schooling his tone this time. "You wan' we should go grab dat, too?"

"No. That's securely in the hands of the military by now, and though I'm quite certain you could get it, the payback is not worth the risk."

"Wait . . . didn' we blow up de big Cerebro just 'cuz de military gettin' hand on it would be very, very bad?"

"For the records stored in it—information on every mutant I've ever located. The Muir Cerebro was little more than an elaborate telephone and a training tool for Betsy. Without a telepath to operate it, it's useless. It's very unlikely they'll even figure out what it is. Leave it be. Hank will meet you at five o'clock tomorrow morning on the ridge that overlooks Bayville from the west. You know it?"

"Yes, sir."

Rogue was _watching_ him again. After all his talk about how Xavier was going to get them killed, she was probably waiting for him to tell their teacher to shove it. But right now there was no point. Xavier and Magneto were, for the time being, giving the same orders. Besides, Remy'd learned through hard and painful experience that he should never, _never _make life-changing decisions when he was stressed, or scared, or angry, or anything other than perfectly lucid and calm. He was not calm right now. Right now was a time for keeping his head down and taking orders, just as he'd agreed to, on the first morning he'd come to the Institute and called it home.

"What about Amara?" Kitty asked. "What's her job?"

Amara hung her head, a red blush of shame rising in her dark cheeks. "I'm going home to Brazil," she admitted. "I'm just getting sicker and sicker up here, and the Dramamine doesn't help. The Professor and I talked it over, and decided it's better if I . . ." She raised her face to Scott, and her eyes were shining with tears. "I'm so sorry, Scott. I'm letting down the team."

"You are _not_," Scott insisted. "You never think that."

"If I felt as bad as you look right now, I'd be going home, too," Kurt told her. Then he paused, reviewing what he'd just said, and added, "I meant zat in ze nicest possible way."

It had perhaps not been a very graceful turn of phrase, but it made Amara smile. "Logan's going to kill me," she observed resignedly.

"He's not," Rogue told her. "If he was here, he'd be tellin' you to get your butt down to Brazil. Trust me."

"Are there any other questions?" Professor Xavier asked the group. When silence answered, he told them, "Then we'll see you in about fifteen hours. Good luck, all of you."

That was the dismissal. The meeting was over. As though the transfer of authority were a visible thing, Remy felt his attention move from Professor Xavier to Scott. They were going into the field again, and that left them in the hands of the field commander.

"Let's go," said Scott. He turned and left the room. Hank followed him, then Kitty, Kurt, Amara, and Rogue. Gambit fell into line last of all.

Rogue didn't glance back at him as they navigated the corridors down to the hangar. Her shoulders were still square, the muscles of her back rigid. Still mad. No end in sight.

Magneto was waiting in the hangar for them. "I'm taking your plane down into the atmosphere," he informed them, when the X-Men recoiled a little in response to his presence.

"Fun ride," said Kurt, under his breath.

"Tell me about it," Rogue muttered. The pair of them fell into step as they boarded the X-Jet. Gambit followed.

As he passed Magneto, his red eyes met the Omega's gray ones. Gambit didn't offer a nod or any other acknowledgment . . . but the glance had happened. There was no telling yet what it would mean.

Rogue had seen it happen. He knew as soon as his eyes flicked back into the plane; she was standing at the top of the loading ramp, watching him. As soon as their eyes met, she turned away, her head dipping and her right hand reaching across to scrub nervously at her left arm.

Something in Remy's gut twisted painfully. Rogue angry he could deal with—in fact, most of the time he downright enjoyed watching her get her color up. But Rogue sad was another matter. He _hated_ seeing her sad. Rogue sad required immediate intervention, because her unhappiness made him feel like dirt. As he climbed up into the plane, what he wanted to do most in the world was slip his arms around her, turn her towards him, and assure her in touch and whispered word that whatever happened, they'd be okay.

That was what he wanted to do. He wanted to do it so much that he felt his feet turn him towards her as the hatch closed behind him. But even though her eyes were turned away, she felt him coming, and turned just a little so her back stayed towards him. Rejected. She'd torture him with her sadness, since shouting and begging hadn't seemed to change his mind.

He took a seat next to Kitty and strapped on his harness. His new adamantium staff weighed heavy inside his coat.

* * *

Jean didn't realize she'd drifted off until the altered note of the engines' hum nudged her back into consciousness. She twisted her neck, stretching the cramped muscles. "Where are we?" she asked, and as she spoke she realized her mouth tasted foul. She wanted a toothbrush. Badly.

"Montana," Logan told her. The thruster engines on Velocity had turned downward, easing them into a vertical landing. "About three miles south of the border."

"Are we close?" He hadn't told her where they were going, and she knew better than to ask, but she figured this was a safe enough question.

"Not really. But this is the only place I know of in the area where it'd be safe to put Velocity down, and if we hunted around for another landing spot I'd lose my orientation. At least I know I've come this way before."

"Less haste, more speed?"

"Something like that." There was a gentle shudder through the plane as she came to rest on solid ground. "Also more walking."

"How much walking are we talking?" She unfastened her harness and stood up. "Because we don't have much equipment on Velocity . . . most of the survival gear's in the X-Jet."

"There's a town on the border. We can buy what we need. Assuming the feds haven't frozen the credit accounts."

"And that anyone will sell to us dressed up like this." She gestured at her sleek gray-and-green uniform. "Well, wear it like you own it, I guess."

Logan killed the engine, locked the computer, unbuckled his flight harness, and stood up. "Grab a pack and come on. We're losin' daylight."

There were six minimalist survival packs in Velocity, one for each of the six seats in the aircraft. Jean snagged one and followed Logan out of the nose hatch and closed it behind her. They'd landed in a quarry. Red-brown rock ascended in tiers all around them, half covered in the last of the grainy winter snow. There wasn't a human soul to be seen.

"So since you've now dodged my question . . . twice . . . I'm guessing that when I ask "How far?", the answer is either "A really, _really _long way," or else "I don't know"."

He sighed and glanced back at her. "Kinda both. I remember landmarks, and I'm pretty sure once I'm on the right trail I'll go in the right direction. But as you may or may not have gathered, it's kind of a mess up here." He tapped his temple. "So no. I don't know how far."

Somehow, the admission sat well with her. Straight talk had once characterized her relationship with Logan, and it was something she'd missed. "Okay," she said steadily.

"When your feet start hurtin', maybe you'll learn your lesson about doing what you're told. Just remember I gave you a fair shot at waiting all this out at a beach house in Bermuda."

"You were going to take me to Bermuda?"

"I guess you'll never know."

She almost laughed. He almost smiled, but seemed to think better of it. "You just better keep up."

"I'll keep up," Jean assured him. "So . . . rain check on the beach house thing?"

"Pushin' your luck."

"Sorry."

* * *

Rogue was working very hard at sitting still. Her body wanted to start rocking, a futile attempt to shake away the stress that was making the muscles of her back, neck, and shoulders seize up. She couldn't touch Remy. And suddenly the intense claustrophobia inside her own skin that she'd lived with for years, the haunting depression that accompanied the inescapable gloves, the sense of entrapment that had all but vanished in the last few months, with Remy always near her, was back with a vengeance.

He was right next to her, and the awareness of his presence was firing along every nerve in her body, part acute embarrassment and part intense, almost painful longing. She had to get out of this plane, soon, or she was going to do something drastic.

"Kurt, Rogue, we're almost to your drop point," said Hank, with timing so perfect she could have kissed him. "It's a few miles inland of New York City. A good chunk of the names you've got are in the area, so it should be a good place to start." He reached behind himself, to a mesh storage pocket behind his seat, and pulled out an envelope. "Take this with you."

Rogue snagged it and reached inside. She found a wad of twenty-dollar bills and two passports: one U.S., one German.

"The passports are fakes, but Gambit assures us they'll stand up to at least some scrutiny. Still, try not to use them unless you need to. And the more you can make the cash stretch, the better off you'll be, but Rogue's going to need some clothes if you two are going to keep a low profile."

Rogue handed the German passport to Kurt and tucked hers, and the cash, into her other leg pocket. "We'll find somethin'."

Kurt immediately flipped his passport open to the back page. "Kurt Strauss?" he read, incredulous. "And where did you get this picture? It's horrible!"

"It's off your student i.d.," Gambit told him, "Photoshopped a little. Wouldn't be a real passport if you didn' look like a stoner."

"We're coming up on the right area," Hank told them. "Do you need me to slow down for you?"

Rogue unbuckled her harness. "Nah, we'll be okay. Kurt, you ready?"

"Ready for action, sir. Ma'am. Rogue."

"All right. Let's do this thing."

"Good luck, you two," Kitty told them. "We'll see you back on Avalon, okay?"

"Take care of each other," Scott ordered. Rogue, of course, couldn't see his eyes, but she could see the lines around them . . . worry, affection, and pride were all written there.

"We will," she assured him. She and Kurt positioned themselves in the middle of the plane, facing one another, and Rogue took a firm grip on his ribs while he wrapped his hands around her shoulders. The momentum would be enough to rip him out of her grasp if she wasn't prepared.

"Whenever you're ready," Hank told them.

Rogue swallowed, took a deep breath, and closed her eyes.

There was the click of a seat belt. "Rogue!"

Her eyes snapped open, and she turned, not letting out her breath. Remy was up out of his seat, motionless as only a trained thief could be—so still he was almost vibrating with it. Looking her straight in the eye, he announced, carefully and clearly, "_I love you_."

Rogue froze. Why, _why _did that sound so strange? She knew that he loved her. Knew it absolutely, whatever he might say about the professor or Magneto or the war. But this was the first time he'd ever _said_ it. Before now, she hadn't known it through words . . . since that morning in New Orleans, she'd known it through his very skin. The fact that he had to say it only underscored how much they might already have lost, the moment her lips met his and so much of what had connected them had gone up in flames. He loved her, and she him . . . but was it going to be enough?

And why was this awful moment dragging on so long? It was Kurt . . . rather than porting them out, Kurt was waiting, giving her a chance to respond. But she couldn't think of a thing to say. One more second here, and she might just faint dead away like some silly swooning female in a cheap novel. So she turned to her brother and whispered, "Go, Kurt." Kurt, bless him, obeyed without question, and in a heartbeat her entire world was transformed into a flash of red, sulfuric heat, then a blast of cold wind and the bottom-dropped-out-of-your-stomach, top-of-the-roller-coaster feeling of the instant before free fall.

He'd said "I love you" and she _hadn't said anything._

This couldn't be happening. This couldn't be happening. She could _not_ have just done that.

"Rogue!"

She snapped out of it, pulling up from the drop that she'd just been allowing to happen, dragging Kurt with her to a standstill in the air as the Blackbird roared out of sight in front of them.

"Rogue," Kurt told her, catching his breath, "When you jump out of a plane, you should _pay attention_, okay?"

"Okay. Ah'm sorry." She let him get an arm around her shoulders and turn so he could see where they were going, then turned towards the New York skyline standing jagged in the distance. And she rearranged her thoughts, shoving Remy and Magneto and all the complications and the hurt and the dread into the furthest, dustiest corner of her mind. "Let's get to work."

* * *

Kitty wished she'd had a second to compare notes with Rogue before the teams had split. Rogue, at least, might tell her what was going on—why she'd left the plane without a word, without a touch, to spare for her boyfriend. That was very weird behavior. Fifteen minutes' interrogation would be enough to pry the whole story out of Rogue, but Kitty knew, from sad experience, that neither time nor tide would coax one scrap of information out of Gambit until he was good and ready to give it. Which, judging by the calm, professional, closed-off way he moved as he retook his seat and refastened his harness, wasn't just yet.

She sat back in her seat and sulked until they were on approach to DC.

"There are passports for you two as well," Hank announced, looking to Scott but jerking his head at Kitty. "Gambit, you've already got yours, right?"

"Pick a color," Gambit deadpanned, pulling from his pocket a small stack of little booklets. He fanned them out, just to show off, then selected one and tossed the others on the floor. "Stickin' wid U.S. fo' now."

"I'm going to drop you at the spot where we parked the X-Jet on our field trip to the Smithsonian last year," Hank informed them. "Will that do all right?"

Scott checked the clock. "It should, if we hurry. It's almost quarter to four."

"Then get ready to hit the ground running." The plane shuddered and rumbled, and Kitty felt the higher-pitched buzz of the VTOL engines kick in under her feet. "Gambit, Kitty, I'll see you in the morning. And Scott . . ."

"See you in the movies," Scott finished for him. "All right, guys, let's move."

* * *

Thankfully, the sun was starting to think about setting, covering Washington in blazing orange light that made everyone with sunglasses whip them on. Scott and Gambit blended right in. Although as the three of them proceeded up the sidewalk, Scott felt a little bit like one half of a matched pair of bodyguards, clearing a path for Kitty, some ambassador's daughter or foreign princess.

They'd managed to buy coats—a long black canvas one for him, and a down-filled ski jacket for Kitty—at a shopping center not far from where they'd landed the plane. Gambit's duster made him look at least moderately normal, but in deference to the cold weather he'd splurged on a sweater and a scarf. Now, at seven minutes to five, they were outside the fence that enclosed the White House and its lawns. He could've hit the side door into the West Wing with an accurately thrown rock . . . if doing so wouldn't have caused the guards to shoot him.

"Okay," Gambit muttered, scanning the space between them and the building. "What we goin' for is _dat_ wall. Press offices right behind it . . . should be empty . . . an' from dere it's a straight shot into de briefing room."

"You've got the floor plan of the White House memorized?" asked Scott.

"Yes," said Gambit, his tone implying _Don't you?_

Scott thought about this for a second, then shrugged it off. _Don't worry about where he got the skills . . . just be glad they're here. "_Okay. So there's two guards in this shack, and two more at this south-facing door we're going to have to cross right in front of. And since the president has a great view all the way down to the Washington Monument and we're going to be in plain view of half the tourist zone, we've got to do this lightning-fast before anyone figures out what's going on."

"'Bout right."

"Gambit, you think you can take out the men in the guard shack before they can raise an alarm?"'

"Yes."

"Okay. I can get the two at the door. You move first. When you're clear, I'll shoot, and then Kitty, you and I make a mad dash for that wall. Sound like a plan?"

"No . . ."

"Gonna do it anyway?"

" . . . Yeah . . ." she admitted.

Scott snorted. "You're a sport, Kitty. Thank you." Suddenly it seemed like a good idea for him to take a deep breath. He was going in there alone. No teammates behind him, no powers to protect him. Throwing himself on the mercy of people who might or might not have any mercy to give. He was scared. He knew about fear, knew how to deal with it . . . that didn't mean he enjoyed it. Some plan. But it was what they had, and these two, bless them, were with them for as long as they could be.

Kitty hugged him. "Good luck in there, Scott. We're all rooting for you."

"Thanks, Kitty. Be careful. Keep Gambit out of trouble." He let her go, then turned and looked at Gambit.

The other mutant's red eyes were uncharacteristically serious. Gambit extended a hand, and Scott took it. He was almost startled enough to let go when Gambit gave his arm a tug turning the distant, professional handshake into the brief, firm, one-armed embrace of brothers in arms.

"You do this," Gambit hissed in his ear, the words almost a command. "You prove it can be done. You prove Magneto wrong, y'hear me?"

Scott gave a little _hmph_ of laughter as he let Gambit go. "Why? Have you got another bet riding on this?"

Gambit gave him a slow, exaggerated nod. "_Oh, ouais_. An' I don'like how high de stakes got. So you win dis for me . . . 'cuz what you're about t'do, I couldn't do, ever. So you go show 'em how it's done, Hero."

Gambit . . . being serious. Since the day he'd moved into the house, Scott had been lecturing him on how he needed to take some things seriously, not treat every aspect of life as his own private joke . . . but now that he saw what Gambit's face looked like without a hint of amusement in it, he began to wish he hadn't insisted quite so much.

Gambit turned to Kitty. "Okay, put me in."

Kitty took him by the arm and guided him through the metal fence. Gambit slipped into the cover of the trees that decorated the lawn and was soon lost to Scott's view.

Scott fished his visor from his pocket, flipped it open, and switched out his glasses. The visor gave him better accuracy, which he was going to need.

When he opened his eyes again, the two guards were still in the guard shack, looking professional but bored. Less than a minute later, without the slightest sound, both of them dropped out of view. Gambit's hand popped up to replace them, gesturing 'A-OK'.

Scott's right hand found the control on his visor and flicked it. _Ffffft-fffft. _Two shots, inside half a second, both hitting their targets flawlessly. A straight, focused eye-beam hit to the temple would probably cause a mild-to-medium concussion . . . hopefully nothing more serious than that. The suddenness with which they dropped made him worry, but there was no time to check; Kitty already had him through the fence.

It was a crazy sprint, no time to think—just the lawn under his feet and the wall looming up in front of him. There was a sunken sidewalk just in front of it that he wasn't ready for, but it didn't end up mattering; they just jumped clean over the walkway and straight through the wall into the press office.

By the time he'd caught his balance and turned around, Kitty was already gone.

* * *

Kitty skittered to a stop outside the White House, her desire to get the heck out of here warring with her desire to go back and give Scott one last hug or word of support. But there was no time. Gambit was already back at the exterior fence, and he needed her help to get out of here. And who knew how long those guards were going to stay unconscious, or if anyone had seen Scott's eye beams and raised an alarm. She was on her feet and running again, pounding past the two poor knocked-out souls, through the trees, and through the fence, yanking Gambit with her.

"I don't got de slightest bit'a confidence dey ain't gonna just up'n shoot him as soon as dey figure out who he is," Gambit told her, "so you stay right here an' watch. De second you hear guns, or see red light flashin' outta dem windows, you go back in an' get him, whether he wants to come or not. I be right back."

He was gone before she had a chance to say another word.

_Oh, crap, oh, crap, oh, crap._ Kitty felt herself phase out again, and she just stayed that way. Phasing was her response to stress. Logan had trained that into her, in hour after hour of Danger Room drills, year after year of life in the house on Greymalkin. He'd throw things at her when she wasn't expecting it, shove her without warning into walls and furniture. When she got fed up and finally yelled at him, he'd snapped back, "When you're startled, Kid, I want you to _phase_. I don't want you to think about it; I just want you to _do _it, like gasping. Reflex."

"Why?" She had been young then, younger than she was now. He powers had still frightened her. Phasing was like diving into deep water, with no guarantee she could come up again.

"Because," he told her, articulating every sound, as though explaining something to a four-year-old having a tantrum, "when you are _phased_, nothing can _hurt_ you."

That was the day she'd learned to trust Logan. He was content to let her think him the world's biggest jerk if that was what had to be done for her to learn how to keep herself safe. So Kitty stood on the sidewalk outside the west wing of the White House, listening for gunfire, while soldiers and marines and federal agents combed the country looking for her and her kind, held safe and untouchable by the little quirk of genetic coding that had started all this trouble in the first place.

She heard raised voices, multiplying like firecrackers from the building and grounds beyond the fence. It was done. Something was happening. But although she felt adrenalin rush through her bloodstream, reinforcing her phase, she heard neither gunshots nor the air-tearing slice of Scott's eyes.

_Go back and help your teammate._ Years of training were screaming at her, not to leave Scott alone, not to stand here doing nothing . . . and _where_ was Gambit? She could just run back in, check that Scott was all right . . .

A silver Toyota pulled out of traffic and eased up against the curb. The passenger door popped open. "Get in," Gambit ordered from the driver's seat.

Kitty balked. "Did you steal this car?" she demanded.

"_Yes_," Gambit snapped, impatient. "Get _in_."

She huffed out her breath, dropped her phase, and climbed into the car. She grabbed for her seat belt, clumsy in her haste to get it on; the steely look in Gambit's eyes suggested they were in for a wild ride. But to her surprise, Gambit flicked on his left turn signal and pulled smoothly out into traffic.

There was another voice in the car. She whipped around to check the back seat, but it was empty apart from a couple of boxes of files and a dry-cleaning bag. Not a person: the radio.

" . . . being confirmed now. A mutant has, indeed, infiltrated the White House. The President and senior staff are being evacuated. No word yet on whether the mutant is working alone, or if there are others . . . so far, no injuries reported . . ."

"Dey took de bait," Gambit muttered. "You didn' hear any shooting?"

Kitty shook her head. "Not one round."

"Den he's on his own. Godspeed, Scott Summers. An' good luck to de poor soul who gotta tell Jean what he done." He changed lanes and turned the radio down. "We got a long drive an' a long night, so you best get some sleep if you can."

* * *

Author's Notes:

Well . . . ahem . . . the delay on this is downright embarrassing. I plead summer camp and funerals, although this only semi-justifies about half of the delay . . .

This chapter is published with apologies to Al Gore—hey, it was a good turn of phrase, and I needed to use it. So there—and with a nod to Doctor Who. Geography of the White House was unwittingly provided by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

* * *

Scott allowed himself a second to reel with shock, to wish that Kitty, Gambit, Jean, Kurt, that _any _of his friends could be here to stay with him through this. No such luck. He went on alone from here.

The office he'd arrived in was empty, but the door was open, and across the room outside was another door through which he could see lights and hear voices. He took a deep breath, switched his visor back to the less-conspicuous sunglasses, and walked forward, slipping himself discreetly into the back of the crowded and brightly lit White House press room.

It was smaller than it looked on tv. There was barely room for the small presenter's stage, a few rows of chairs, and the large camera rigs at the back. Reporters with notepads and photographers with cameras were squished in along the walls. Scott shouldered his way in, not making eye contact with anyone. _Mutant in the White House, people. Surprise._

Flashbulbs started flicking, and Scott repressed a surge of panic that they were photographing him. No—he was still unnoticed. Senator Creed was stepping up to the podium. Hopefully all the lights in his eyes would keep him from wondering where he'd seen the guy in the sunglasses before.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the senator began, glancing down at his notes, "this morning, at approximately two thirty-three a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, a task force comprised of units from the U.S. Army, U.S. Marines, and New York National Guard initiated a strike at the Xavier Institute for the Gifted in Bayville, New York. They had warrants for the arrest of all students, on the charge of failing to register as carriers of the X-gene, and for Professor Charles Xavier on charges of aiding and abetting. When these warrants were served, the occupants of the house responded violently. Seven members of the task force were killed, and another fourteen were injured. All the mutants of the Xavier Institute are currently at large, as is Professor Xavier himself. I will now take questions."

_Seven. One of the soldiers in critical didn't make it._

There was a wave of sound as everybody in the room raised a hand and yelled "Senator Creed!" in hopes of being the first to get a question in. Scott shot his hand up, but a female reporter in the front row of chairs was called on instead. "Senator, is there reason to believe that any of these mutants might still be in the country?"

"At this point, that's not looking likely. They fled the scene in two private aircraft, headed east over the Atlantic. They might have doubled back, but supposition at the moment is that they have taken refuge elsewhere . . . possibly in a country such as Liberia or North Korea, where extradition would be difficult. But if they're still on U.S. soil, we'll find them."

"Senator Creed! Senator Creed!"

"George."

"How many mutants were present inside the Institute building at the time of the raid?"

"The school's records indicate sixteen mutants—most with extremely dangerous powers, as has been tragically shown in the deaths of our servicemen."

Scott felt himself flinch involuntarily, and behind his eyelids the library flickered in and out, like a clip from a bad, blood-and-guts horror movie. American servicemen . . . who were just doing what their commanders had told them to, because _this man_ had told their commanders to kill Charles Xavier's students. Behind his eyes, his powers and his anger burned. And before the wave of sound could rise up again, he'd yelled out. "_Senator Creed!"_

His voice was so loud and abrupt that it cut through the clamor, and he plowed on, not giving the Senator a second to remember that he'd seen him before. "Isn't it true, Senator, that everything you just said about warrants was a complete pack of lies?"

Every head whipped in his direction. A couple of cameras, too. "Isn't it true, Senator Creed, that the students of the Xavier Institute were given no chance to surrender? That they were assaulted with deadly force whether they resisted or not? Is it not also true that the school had publicly declared that they would submit peacefully to legal arrest?"

"Who are you?" Senator Creed demanded.

"My name is Scott Summers. I'm a student at the Xavier Institute and commander of the X-Men. You, Senator, ordered an unprovoked attack on my team, authorized lethal force on women and children, and as good as murdered those seven American soldiers, and if you'd have the decency to arrest me, I'd swear to it in a court of law."

Silence.

Pandemonium.

For a few moments, so many people were intent on taking his picture that nobody thought to actually arrest him. Every reporter in the room was shouting; flashbulbs were blazing like six lightning storms at once. A bodyguard tackled Senator Creed, forcing him to take cover behind the podium. Scott just stood still and let the chaos rage, until finally someone—from the weight and force of impact, he'd guess Secret Service, unless the major U.S. news carriers were recruiting ex-linebackers—slammed into his back, knocking the wind out of him and pinning him to the carpet. His glasses jostled loose; he squeezed his eyes shut and shoved his face back into them. Both his arms were wrenched back behind him, and he felt cold metal cuffs click snug around his wrists.

"You are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent."

"Don't take my glasses," Scott gasped, struggling to get enough air back into his system.

"Get him out of here!"

"Mr. Summers, did you come here to assassinate Senator Creed?"

"Mr. Summers, the accusations you've made—"

"Mr. Summers, over here!"

"You have the right to a lawyer."

"Mr. Summers—"

"If you cannot afford a lawyer—"

And in the midst of the shouting, shoving crowd, Scott Summers, Cyclops of the X-Men, was hauled to his feet and led away in chains.

* * *

"Afternoon," Jean chimed as she pushed open the door of the small convenience store. Overt friendliness was always her knee-jerk reaction when she felt uncomfortable, and wandering into a shop in her training uniform was about as uncomfortable as coming to school in her pajamas.

"Be right with you," said a man's voice from the back of the store.

"You get water," Logan told her. "Much as you can carry."

"Water," Jean repeated. She grabbed a shopping basket from the stack next to the door and started loading water bottles into it, two at a time, from the glass-doored cooler.

The storekeeper . . . probably the owner, too; he was an older man with the steady confidence of someone in his own space . . . emerged from the back room, carrying a box of paper towels that was just about as big as he could manage. "Hey there," his voice said, his face hidden behind the box. "Finding everything all right?"

"Yep, no problems," Jean answered.

There was a step stool that he seemed to be aiming for, to place the box on the highest shelf, where it would be out of the way until it was needed. Jean paused in her water-gathering work to watch his progress. He mounted the stool, muscling the box up over his head until it had one edge onto the shelf. But he'd miscalculated on his balance: under his feet, the step stool tipped backward on two legs. He yelled, his weight throwing him forward under the teetering box.

It was reflex. Jean reached out and grabbed box, man, and stool in one powerful sweep of TK. The strain of their weight pressed back on her, and she braced one foot behind herself, dropping her basket and pushing up with both hands to steady her control.

She could feel him catching his breath, his ribs pressing out against the grip she had on him. Another second and he'd be panicking. "I'm sorry," she gasped. "Just hold on. I've got you." Using her hands to steer her powers, she pushed the box up into place, steadied the stool back onto four legs, and lowered the man carefully to the ground.

"Please don't be upset," she pleaded, letting go of the last of her TK control. "I just didn't want you to fall."

"You did that?" he asked, leaning warily away from her.

"I did," Jean acknowledged gently. "You don't have to be scared. My name is Jean, and I'm a telekinetic alpha mutant. I can . . . move things with my mind."

The man's eyes shot from Jean to somewhere over her shoulder. She glanced back, just to let her eyes confirm what she already knew: Logan was behind her, hovering, waiting, watching like a hawk for this guy to start something.

"This is my friend Logan," Jean offered, trying to diffuse the tension that she could feel building both in front of and behind her.

"Mutant," the store owner repeated. He licked his lips, then said, "I always sorta figured mutants had horns, or something."

Jean smiled. "We don't. Well . . . one of my friends does, but he's the only one I know. See?" She nodded her head forward and combed her hand through her thick red hair. "Nothing. Except grease. I haven't had a shower in a while." She shook her hair back off her face, then twisted and touched the red and black X logo emblazoned at her shoulder. "See this? If you ever see this mark, then you can know that the person wearing it is an Xavier mutant, an X-Man, and you can ask them for help if you need it."

The shopkeeper shot another glance at Logan, probably not missing the matching logo emblazoned on the front of his left shoulder. Logan's glares were not helping their PR.

"Xavier," the man repeated thoughtfully. "So the young man on the news . . . is he one of yours?"

Jean felt the whole world, with very little fuss or fanfare, stop dead around her. "What young man?"

"The one that was just arrested in the White House."

Her blank, uncomprehending stare seemed to persuade him that she didn't have any idea what he was talking about.

"Just heard it on the radio in the back," he muttered, turning back to the checkout counter. "Here." There was a tv mounted high up in the corner, which he turned on by means of a broom handle.

And there it was on the tv screen, exactly what she wanted to see least in the world, crushing all her hopes that the 'young man' was some other poor idiot, or even some other member of the team . . . Gambit would do something stupid like sneak into the White House, though he wouldn't get caught, and Bobby would get caught though he wouldn't know how to get in, or even Kurt, she'd be less upset about Kurt . . . but no, of course not, of course the 'young man' she saw on the television screen being forcibly removed from the White House briefing room was none other than her very own boyfriend.

_What. Did. He. Do?_

"Excuse me," she requested, astonished at how calm she could make her voice sound. She turned around and left the store, marching out into the cold air of early March on the Canadian border.

She opened her mind and reached out . . . she knew Scott's mind better than any other person's, and even across the country it was easy to find. Her head started throbbing, protesting the distance she was trying to traverse, but she tamped down on it with the absent coordination of driving a manual transmission, as though she'd been doing it for years. _SCOTT CHRISTOPHER SUMMERS!_

His voice echoed back. _Kind of busy; I can't talk right now . . ._

_ What do you THINK you are DOING?_

_ Right now? Getting fingerprinted._

_ How could you do this? All by yourself—I should be there—_

_No, you shouldn't. You need to help Logan. Don't worry—I'm going to have a nice, legal trial and this will all blow over and we can go home. No fighting, and no one gets hurt._

_ Have they taken your glasses?_

_ Yes._

_ Oh, Scott . . ._

_ It's okay. I can manage. Are you all right?_

_ Yes, I'm fine, but—_

_ Then we're okay. I've got to go—I love you—_

_ SCOTT!_

Too late. He couldn't close his mind to her, but he could withdraw his attention, which seemed to be easy enough—he had enough to focus on there. She was left alone, standing in the cold street of a tiny Montana town, angry because she was frightened for the people she loved.

Her control slipped, and the headache pounded back. She flinched, her head bowing forward as she recoiled from the light, and suddenly there was a supportive hand resting on her back.

"Take it easy," Logan instructed, his rough voice low and steady. "He's okay. They won't hurt him."

"I know . . ." she murmured, swallowing hard. "I overdid it. My head's gonna split open."

"You can handle it. You know how."

She took a breath and pushed gently back on the headache. It eased off, then vanished.

"Okay?" he asked.

She nodded, raising her head and opening her eyes. Logan took his hand off her back, but his eyes didn't leave her face, watching the color come back into her cheeks. "Yes," she confirmed, seeing concern still lingering in the set of his mouth. "I'm okay now."

"Good." He handed her one of the packs, heavy with water. "Because I'm not carrying both of these."

She lugged the strap over her shoulder and snaked her other arm into the pack. "So our credit is still good, then?"

"Nope." He pulled his own load onto his back. "Card's dead. I used the emergency cash, and he said not to worry about the rest. You made an impression, Red."

"That was nice of him."

"No credit to him. You bring out the nice in people."

Jean humphed. "If that were true, you wouldn't have given me so much of the water to carry."

"If that _weren't_ true, you'd be carrying all of it, since you're the one that's going to be drinking it." He started off, heading for a side street that intersected the main road.

"What are _you_ going to drink?"

"Snow. Better save your breath—I want to put a good few miles between us and town before dark, just in case he changes his mind about calling the cops on us."

Jean saved her breath as instructed, and was soon glad she had, because Logan set a murderous pace over the steep terrain. She kept up, but it took all her reserves and a measure of grim determination, the kind she sometimes forgot she had. By the time they stopped for a rest and a drink, she was exhausted.

When she took a seat on a fallen tree and opened her pack to pull out a bottle of water, she found a bright red package of Skittles tucked inside.

* * *

Kitty had dropped off into a dead sleep somewhere in New Jersey, as darkness settled thick and heavy around the car. Gambit flicked the headlights on and kept driving, thumb and two fingers casually gripping the bottom of the steering wheel, the speedometer hovering a polite five miles an hour above the speed limit. For the first hour or so, he'd listened to the radio, where reporters, commentators, and disc jockeys had debated endless circles about Scott's arrest and its implications, but he'd grown tired of it miles back and switched it off. He needed time to think, alone in the dark, with the noise of the engine and the tires on the road numbing him into some kind of clarity.

The farther he drove, the less the gall of their unjust situation stung at him, and the more his thoughts circled like vultures around the sight of Rogue, her bruised face turned away from him and something like fear in her eyes. She'd looked so small, so cold, with nothing between her and the world but the form-fitting dark gray fabric of her Institute uniform. In the past year, she'd worn her old olive green Korean war army jacket day in and day out—she'd looked bigger in it, tougher, less fragile. The Rogue he'd seen today looked more like the girl he'd first met, years ago: lonely and haunted, abrasive and defiant. One against the world, with no one to trust or rely on. He'd hurt her. He'd scared her. And he'd made himself the enemy all over again.

This was insane. Was he, Remy Etienne LeBeau, Gambit of the X-Men, actually waiting on the political machinations of Xavier, Magneto, and the U.S. Court System to tell him if he could or could not reconcile with his own girlfriend? Pathetic.

But what would he do, when Scott was fed to the wolves, when Magneto moved to start the fight Remy was so aching to get his fists into? He _wanted _to fight . . . not against Magneto, but against the soldiers who'd shot Bobby, the man that had hidden behind the kitchen table, the one that had pried his staff out of his hand, the one who'd launched the patriot, Senator Creed and his snobbish blonde secretary, everyone who'd voted and funded and lobbied this chain of events into motion, against the unstoppable wave of _not fair_ that they'd unleashed on him. They'd stolen from him. He wanted to make them pay, to lash back, to balance the scales. Maybe Scott could surrender to their judgment and justice after all they'd done, but Gambit couldn't. Scott was a hero. Remy was just a survivor.

But survival meant Rogue. He _needed _Rogue. And Rogue was a hero, too.

He couldn't have the image of his girlfriend shivering in her own embrace, turning her back to him, circling through his head forever. He'd go crazy.

He had to get her jacket back to her.

Maybe this wasn't a rational, well-thought out solution. But it was an urgent, sudden, gut-level _need_. He had to get that jacket, to wrap her up in it and see by her wearing it that they were still connected to one another, whatever else might be happening. And he was on his way to the house where they'd left it. Handy.

_Not_ handy, warned the voice in his head that he always regretted not listening to. He was on a job, with a specific target. Adding another target was a bad idea, particularly when there were guns involved.

It was a lesson he'd had lashed into the skin of his back when he was thirteen years old. His father had just pronounced his sons old enough to come along on jobs, and so on privileged occasions they'd follow him, like wolf pups watching their parents hunt, to learn how to thieve.

They were in a private house, waiting, while Jean-Luc's safe-cracker, Lucas, applied his stethoscope and grease pencil to the wall-mounted safe in the next room. There had been a china dish on the coffee table, filled almost to overflowing with round red-and-white-striped peppermint discs.

Remy, almost without thinking, had snagged two of the welcoming little candies and tossed one to Bobby. They both knew better than to eat on the job, so they tucked the treats away in their pockets.

Remy'd unwrapped his on the way home. And his father had seen.

The candy, and Bobby's, were thrown in the bayou where they'd never be seen or heard from again. And when they got home, both boys were subjected to corporal punishment the likes of which they had never felt before or since. Jean-Luc was not a cruel man—not physically cruel, anyway—and he didn't arbitrarily beat his sons. When he laid violent hand on them, it was with a specific objective in mind, and was only as long or as harsh as was necessary to make that objective absolutely impossible to forget.

On this particular evening, the blows only stopped when Christine, who _never_ spoke up against her husband, cried out "Jean-Luc, for the love of God!" Remy, who'd stayed on his feet through the whole thing on pride alone, collapsed onto all fours and shook. He could still see the pattern of the tiles in the kitchen floor, spattered with his and Bobby's blood, and taste the bile in his mouth.

"You boys listen to me good," Jean-Luc instructed. "And you never, never forget dis. Better t'ieves dan de pair'a you been brought low by what you just done. When you go on a job, you go in wid one target. Just one. An' you steal what you came for. I don' care what else you find. I don't care if you see Marilyn Monroe can-can dancing in a string bikini an'de crown jewels. You steal what you came for, an' _nothing else. Not one thing. Ever._"

Remy'd never been able to eat peppermint discs again.

But, he reasoned to himself, this wasn't like that, really. This wasn't a snap last-second decision. There were still at least three hours of driving between them and the house; it was plenty of time to think the job out. And there were two of them. Two thieves, two targets. In and out. No problem. He could do it. And he'd have the comfort and the satisfaction of seeing Rogue wrapped up safe in the jacket Delphine had given her—to see _it_, at least, hold her while he couldn't. The payoff was worth the risk.

And besides . . . he spared a glance for Kitty, sleeping uncomfortably in the passenger seat. He was going in with Shadowcat. That was such a blatant cheat that it made the excursion hardly count as a job at all. If they'd had the necessary time to put together a _real_ job, he would never have agreed to take her in the first place. But with Kitty along, the whole process was going to be a cakewalk. He could even stop in at his own room and pick up his CDs if he wanted.

He settled back in the driver's seat and started to plan.

* * *

Author's Notes:

No notes to this chapter except read and review, quick, because the next chapter's dang exciting and I can't wait to get it posted!


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

* * *

Rogue hovered outside the window of a penthouse apartment so high off the ground that it almost gave _her _vertigo. Kurt was clinging to the wall above the window frame, upside-down, cautiously peering inside.

"See anything?" he asked.

"Nothin'."

"Should I just port us in? Ve can leave a note on the mirror in lipstick."

"You got any lipstick?"

"No. Okay, bad plan."

"No kidding. A place this expensive is gonna be crawling with security. Probably motion sensors inside."

"Can you get past them?"

"Of course not!"

"I just thought, vit Gambit in your head so much . . ."

"Ah picked up enough from him to know they're there, not to know what to do about it."

"So vhat do we do about it?"

Rogue sighed, resting her elbows on the stone sill and her chin on her hands. "Go get some dinner? Find a place to sleep? With the money we can't afford to part with, or at the houses of friends we don't have?"

"You sure he still lives here?"

"It says 'Worthington' in big huge letters on the roof. Yeah, Ah'm pretty sure."

The main door of the apartment swung open. Rogue ducked, leaving only her eyes and forehead visible over the bottom of the window. But when she saw a familiar figure walk inside, stripping off hat, goves, and scarf, she raised herself back up again. "That's him!"

She rapped her knuckles on the glass pane. "Warren!"

The tall, broad-shouldered, golden-haired man turned around, caught sight of the two faces peering at him through the window, stared for a second, and then crossed to the window to pull it open. "Rogue? Is that you?"

"Let us in, will ya? It's freezing out here!"

He obediently stepped back. Rogue slipped inside, and Kurt scrambled after her, crawling onto the ceiling like a lizard before dropping onto the carpet.

Incredulously, Warren checked out of the window, as though to reassure himself that his apartment was still several dozen stories off the ground. "Since when can _you_ fly?" he asked Rogue, fastening the window shut again.

"Two years, two and a half," Rogue estimated absently. "Uh, Warren, this is my brother, Kurt . . . Kurt, Warren . . ."

"Nice to meet you," Kurt offered. "_Great_ apartment."

"Thanks," Warren answered politely, still trying to work out just what Kurt was. "Nice, um, fur."

"Thanks. Ze ladies love it, but you wouldn't believe how fast I go through conditioner."

"We came to see if you were okay," Rogue finished.

Warren snorted. "You came to see if _I'm_ okay? Aren't you the ones who had a military strike on your house! And wasn't that Scott on the news getting arrested at the press conference?"

"Oh, that went down okay?" Kurt asked. "That's good news."

"You've got a weird definition of good news," Warren sighed. "Well, you'd better sit down and tell me what you're doing in my neck of the woods, and if you have any other 'good news' I should know about. Have you had dinner?"

"No," said Rogue.

"Or lunch," Kurt added.

"I'll call out for something." Warren snagged a remote off his cream leather sofa and pointed it at the fireplace, which blossomed into cheerful yellow flames. "Have a seat and get warm. Hanging around outside my window with no coats on probably wasn't any fun."

Say what you would about Warren's refusal to join the X-Men—the man was an excellent host. Forty-five minutes later, Kurt and Rogue were wrapped in a blanket apiece, almost warm enough to be uncomfortable in the heat of the fire, picking at the last of a generous spread of high-end delivery Chinese food with unevenly split wooden chopsticks. Rogue gave him a thorough run-down of what had been going on, going into more detail than they had with the few other people they'd managed to find that evening.

"So, wait . . . Magneto's been moved over into the 'good guys' camp?" Warren asked, his eyebrows raising.

"_No,_" Rogue deadpanned.

"Not really," Kurt amended, ever more generous than his fierce, unforgiving sister. "It just worked out that . . . vell . . . ve don't have a lot of other options right now."

"He's playin' a game, just like the rest of us," Rogue accused. "But . . . he's kinda right, at least a little. A lotta mutants gotta get themselves out of the country, fast, if they don't wanna end up in labs and prisons. And he was prepared. He had a place to go. That's more than the X-Men ended up with."

"And that's the invitation you're extending?"

"Yeah. No big leather sofas, but at least it's safe. For now."

"And you can't beat ze view," Kurt added.

Warren leaned back into the cushions of his sofa. He'd changed from his business suit and winter coat into sweatpants and a t-shirt with an oval cut out of the back to allow for his enormous white wings. They were draped over the back of the couch, and rustled whenever he shifted position. "I'm not going to lie about it . . . getting out has its appeal right now." He leaned forward again, to pick up the crystal glass with its inch of amber liquid he'd left on the coffee table. He took a mouthful of it, swallowed thoughtfully, and elaborated. "I haven't been able to, you know, _get out_ since all the fuss started up. Being able to help people was a big part of what kept me from going crazy with these things." He spread his wings a little bit, for emphasis, then let them fall again. "And then there's my dad. I don't know if you guys know, but my father's one of the men who paid for the Mutant Registration Act."

"But doesn't he know _you're _a mutant?" Kurt asked.

"Oh, he knows. He's just not happy about it. He wouldn't turn me in . . . bad for his reputation . . . but if the public ever found out about my mutation, he wouldn't raise a hand to help me."

"So ditch him," Rogue advised. "Ah would."

"I would, too. But the problem's the money. He still controls everything. Put one feather out of line, and I'm cut off—probably for good." He tossed back the rest of the whiskey, too fast, and flinched a little as it burned him on the way down. "But that's the way it's been for a long time, and I'm _sick _of it. It's about time I fought. The only question is: what's going to be more useful to your team? An X-Man with wings . . . or a herd of very expensive lawyers?"

"Lawyers?" Rogue echoed.

"Scott just got himself tangled up in the trial of the century. And I just happen to have a legal team on retainer, who really aught to be doing some actual _work. _So what do you think?"

Rogue looked at Kurt; he looked back at her. Smiles were starting to spread across their faces.

"Zat . . . sounds great," Kurt managed at last.

"Good. I'll make some phone calls, get some people out of bed. What else do you two need? A place to stay tonight? There's a guest bedroom, and the couch. And you could probably use, what, cell phones, credit cards, a change of clothes?"

"Ah'd thank you for a shower," said Rogue.

"First door on the left."

Rogue sat back and stared at him. "Warren," she said at last, "you're a godsend."

Warren's wings re-settled, giving him the look of an eagle fretting a little on its perch. "Yep. I've heard that before."

* * *

Gambit parked the car at the end of one of the rock-strewn dirt roads that cris-crossed the woods behind the Institute. Before waking Kitty, he destroyed both license plates and the bar code on the inside of the driver's door. It wouldn't prevent the car from being identified, but it would slow matters down a little.

He opened the passenger door and crouched down, eye-level with the unconscious Kitty. "Hey, _Petite_. Rise an' shine." He put a hand on her shoulder and gave her a gentle shake.

Kitty moaned and opened her eyes, and a picture flickered across the inside of Gambit's eyelids, of the way Rogue looked at just that moment of stirring into wakefulness. The resemblance only lasted a heartbeat, because as soon as Kitty was awake enough to realize that she'd been asleep, she _jumped_ into full consciousness, and would have fallen out of the car if she hadn't been buckled in. "What time is it?" she gasped, fumbling for her seat belt.

"'Bout one a.m. We're about two miles off de grounds, I guess." He stood up, giving her room to leave the car.

"Why didn't you wake me up? I would've driven for a while."

"Nah. Didn' wanna spoil your record of never havin' driven a stolen car. An' plus, I don't trust yo'drivin."

"Ha." Kitty locked and closed the door, flicking her head to clear sleep out of it. "So how are we doing this?"

"I thought it out. When you phased, you kin only go down, right? No climbin' _sans_ stairs or such?"

"No, not really. I was working on it with Storm, but we hadn't gotten very far, and with another person . . ."

"Okay." He took a second to review his plans, one hand scrubbing absently at his jaw (he needed to shave; he was probably starting to look like a hobo), then nodded briskly. "Okay. We movin' quick wid no lights out here, so hang onto my coat, _comprends_?"

"Got it." Kitty grabbed onto his sleeve and knotted her fingers into the fabric.

He tried to guide her along the smoothest track through the woods, having compassion on her limited vision. Other than a few stumbles, which she bore with admirable silence (if she hadn't been holding onto him, he wouldn't have known she'd fallen), they made it to the edge of the grounds.

The lawn was floodlit. "Dey expectin' us back," Gambit breathed, crouched in the deep shadows underneath a towering oak.

"There're soldiers on patrol," Kitty whispered back, nodding at the two-man team just disappearing around the edge of the house. "They've got guns." She tugged a little on his coat, and he turned to face her. "Gambit," she asked, awkwardly, "Do you want . . . do you want to use my powers? Just in case? There're _guns_ . . ."

Gambit shook his head. "I'll be fine. _T'inquiète pas."_

"How're we going to get to the house?"

"Pipes." Gambit pointed off to their left, away from the house. At the very edge of the lawn, a length of pipe, about two feet high, stuck up from the grass. "Dat's de vent for de fan system dat keeps it from smellin' like a cave down under de house. A straight-on guide to de utility hatch behind de Danger Room."

"Wow. I didn't realize the basement was that big."

"It's huge. Wait 'till dat team passes, an' we go."

"Won't they see us?"

"Walkin' around in all dat light? Not enough night vision t'spot a bright orange elephant. Speakin' of, keep your eyes on de grass a second. Gonna be dark downstairs, too."

Kitty obediently ducked her head. "Just tell me when to go," she requested.

"Yeah."

"Gambit . . . I'm really glad you're here, and you know what you're doing."

Gambit choked back a snort of laughter. "Is dat how it looks to you?" Before she could answer, he took her hand. "Ready . . . now."

Only seconds behind the patrol team that had just passed them, the two young mutants broke cover and ran for the vent pipe. The ground they traversed was covered in snow, but it had been trampled flat by dozens of army boots. Kitty skittered a little as she brought them to a halt just short of the pipe, then took a deep breath and dropped, letting her arms come up over her head as though she were doing a feet-first surface dive in the pool. Gambit followed suit, keeping a tight grip on her hand.

They sank much quicker than they would have in water, the dirt flickering past Gambit's eyes in an unsettling blur of blackness. Jealous as he was of Kitty's undeniably useful power, he didn't envy her having to do these dives into what one flinch could make into an early grave.

But she knew what she was doing, and before he knew it the darkness had peeled away from his eyeballs and he was blinking in the dim light of the little green and red bulbs on the control panel of the heating system.

He sucked in a breath of air, enjoying the comforting solidity of the floor under his feet. Kitty was already recovered and had her orientation back. "Okay, Danger Room's through this wall, right?"

"_Ouais_. Be ready t'keep us phased—all de C4 Beast blew in dere probably made a mess t'tell de grandkids about."

Kitty stuck her head through the wall, then pulled him through after her.

The good news was that the Danger Room was empty of anyone besides themselves. It was, however, full of everything else. The floor was covered with the broken arms and claws and blades of the training equipment, blown-off chunks of the walls and ceiling. The observation room lay in a twisted pile of metal and glass in the middle of the middle of the space, fitting almost neatly into the crater the C4 had left. The door to the hallway had been cut off its hinges, leaving a gaping hole.

"Oh my _gosh_," said Kitty.

"Hush now," said Gambit. "Go quick."

Kitty led the way, more confident than he was that they would continue to run _through_ everything and not _into_ it. Gambit kept up, his phased feet making no noise against the floor. They slid through the far wall and into the smaller but equally wrecked medical bay.

"I can't see a thing."

"I can." Gambit dropped her hand. "Just hold still _un moment_." He jumped over a pile of rubble that had been the counter top and started digging as quietly as possible through the mess. "Ah, _le voilà."_

One of the exam tables was still intact, flipped onto its side. He braced his foot against one of the legs and pulled it upright, then glanced up at the ceiling, getting his bearings. "Okay. We go up right here an' we come up right in de Professor's little kitchenette."

"Why don't we go up right into the cellar-thing? It's be safer. The medical bay goes that far, right?"

"Yes, it does. But I need t'get up, too, an' dey ain't no room fo'me in dere." He climbed up onto the table and beckoned to her. "C'mon."

"What do you need to get up for? Can't you just stay here?"

"Nope. Get up here. Russian fastball."

Kitty stumbled to the table, and Gambit helped her up. With her grabbing his shoulders for balance, he bent down and guided her randomly waving foot into the stirrup made by his interlaced fingers. Just like Colossus tossing her in the pool, Gambit pitched Kitty straight up into the ceiling. He saw her legs flail for a few seconds, then pull up and disappear. A few seconds later, her head, shoulder, and arm reappeared, grabbing for his upraised hand and pulling him after her.

The little kitchenette, in stark contrast to the rest of the house, was all but intact. The explosions had knocked a few things off shelves, leaving shards of glass and porcelain scattered across the floor, but other than that the environment was relatively normal. The only door from it led into the office, but through the back wall the tramp of boots echoed.

Gambit snuck a look into the Professor's office. The military had moved in; a command computer had been plopped onto the big oak desk, and papers and photographs lay scattered around it. The DEFCON barriers still covered the windows. The door was open. The patrol walked by, then back.

"Kin you see de desk?" he whispered.

"Only a little. But I know where it is. But where are you going?"

"Upstairs. One little t'ing I forgot to grab on our way out."

"You can't get upstairs! You'll get shot! And didn't you blow up the big staircase?"

"Not takin' de stairs. Goin' up de dumbwaiter."

"We have a dumbwaiter?"

The patrol team passed the door again. Gambit shoved her. "Go! I'll be back; meet me right here."

Kitty scrambled across the floor and slithered down, disappearing into the thick pile of the carpet. Gambit turned to the back wall of the kitchen.

The Xavier mansion was old, and over the course of its history it had been remodeled, re-formed, and expanded at least half a dozen times. Gambit, who'd made an art form of sneaking in and out of the place, knew more nooks and crannies than even Professor Xavier had ever explored. In some earlier generation, the kitchen had been where the medical bay was now. And there had been a dumbwaiter, a hand-cranked tiny elevator shaft running through the kitchen and up to the second floor. It had been forgotten, wallpapered over. But Gambit had found it, as a discrepancy in the width of the kitchenette's back wall and the depth of the hall closet, and explored it.

He fished his jack knife from his pocket, tapping with the first knuckle of his other hand at the back wall. The dumbwaiter shaft echoed dully in response. He slipped the blade underneath the papering and drew it down until it found the seam where he'd cut the door open the last time. There aught to be a groove here, cut into the wood with this same knife . . . it slipped in, and he pulled back, swinging open his expressway to any level of the house.

The shaft itself was barely three by three—just big enough for him to brace his feet against the sides and shimmy upward. Not dignified, but then, thieving often wasn't. It wouldn't take Kitty more than a few minutes to copy those files, so he had to move fast.

His luck held; when he pushed open the dumbwaiter door on the second floor, the hallway was empty. The footsteps still reverberated downstairs, as did men's voices. He snaked onto the floor and climbed to his feet, closing the door behind him. There were troops downstairs, troops outside; they were focusing on the entrances and exits, still thinking like they were fighting humans. But there'd be a patrol up here in a couple of minutes, and he had to be back down in the (relative) safety of the kitchenette.

Rogue's room. The big, once-tidy and comfortable space had been ransacked, the comforting magnolia-scent of Rogue and strawberry-scent of Kitty overlaid by grease and bitter, acrid gunpowder. The beds had been stripped of their sheets, the mattresses and box springs sliced open, the dresser drawers pulled out and dumped. Kitty's laptop was nowhere to be seen.

Where was the coat? Rogue always hung it on the post at the foot of her bed, but it wasn't there now. He dove into the pile of clothes, tossing each article of clothing behind him as he rejected them as not what he was looking for. Why did these two have so many _clothes_?

His hand brushed an unfamiliar fabric. He pushed away the sweatshirt he'd been fishing under and found an entire outfit, still grouped together on one hangar, just as it had been tossed by some army goon. Folded over the bottom of the hangar was a pair of pants, in what he could have sworn, if he hadn't known better, was black _vinyl_, and suspended from hangar straps was a tube top (a _tube top_! and way too short to cover much) in forest green. A short brown jacket hung over both pieces, and a studded collar with matching arm bands were slung over the hook.

Several somethings inside Remy's brain overloaded and then exploded. How could Rogue own this? And how could he not have known about it? And . . . his eye caught a glint; he grabbed for it and . . . and _how_ could Kitty own almost the exact same outfit, two sizes smaller?

That settled it. He had to get Rogue back. Because these clothes needed a long and thorough explanation, preferably with visual aids.

No time. He shoved his hands into the pile of clothes until he felt the rough olive-green Korean-War-surplus canvas of the jacket Delphine had given to Rouge. Got it. He shrugged out of his own coat, stripped off the sweater he'd bought in DC, pulled her jacket on his own shoulders and donned his coat over it. The arrangement was a little bulky, but it was warm, and it kept his hands free.

Nothing to it. Now he just had to meet up with Kitty, get out, and make the rendezvous with the plane. He'd be safe on the station, unconscious in his not-very-comfortable bed, sleeping all this off, by six. Comfort level of the bed aside, that was a very appealing prospect.

He left the door ajar, just as it had been, and wiggled his way back into the claustrophobic dumbwaiter shaft. Getting down was easier than getting up: just a controlled slide, with the rubber bottoms of his shoes acting as brakes. And when he reached the kitchenette, he discovered that he had, despite his fears, been fast enough; Kitty wasn't out yet.

The patrol was up by the stairs, well out of the way. Gambit came to the doorway and glanced into the office. No light, no movement. He crouched down onto his heels and waited.

It couldn't have been more than two minutes (he heard the patrol heading back towards the dining room) before Kitty's head popped up through the carpet behind the professor's desk. Her arms pulled out next, and as she levered herself up on her elbows he saw that her right fist was closed tight. She had the USB drive, and if she was holding it that tightly, it had something on it worth protecting.

In a second, both her feet were clear of the floor and she was lying stomach-down. She raised her head and caught his eye, then scrambled gracelessly to her feet and ran towards him.

The sound was tiny—if the house hadn't been so quiet he would've had no chance of hearing it. It was a small, sharp, compressed-air sound, like someone trying to hold in a sneeze. He knew what it was, but by the time he heard it, it was already too late. Kitty arched backwards, her whole body twisting as her forward momentum tried to overwhelm the reverse movement of all the muscles in her back and neck seizing up. The little silver dart sticking out of her carotid artery gleamed as she fell.

Gambit flicked a card from his pocket and flung it at the hallway, where he could just see the warm glowing profile of the gunman who'd been hidden from him by the insulation of the wall. The throw was arched just right; the card exploded in the guy's face with the power of a decent hand grenade, and even before it went off Gambit was scrambling to where Kitty had fallen.

"Kitty!"

Her eyes were still half-open; the dart hadn't knocked her out all the way. "Gambit . . ." Her lips barely moved around the word.

He grabbed at her arm, ready to heft her up onto his shoulder and carry her out . . . which way, he didn't know . . . but his hand went clean through her. She was phased.

There were shouts now; that explosion had attracted a lot of attention. Gambit made another grab for her shoulder, but with no better results. "Kitty! Snap out of it, _Minou_ . . . we gotta go. Come on!"

"What happened . . ." Her voice was no stronger than a sigh.

"Unphase, _Petite_. Unphase. Go solid. You kin do it! Wake up, I gotta get you out of here!"

"Nothing . . . nothing can hurt me . . ."

The voices were louder now. Gambit's head snapped up of his own accord, his body switching from 'fight' into 'flight' as his role switched from stealthy predator to cornered prey. he forced his attention back down, away from the door, towards his fallen teammate. "Not leavin' wid'out you, Kitty, so come on, wake up or go under but don't just lie there!"

No time. No plan. Everything that he could think of to do was impossible as long as Kitty stayed phased. He couldn't move her, couldn't pull out the dart, couldn't drain away her powers to force her to go solid . . . couldn't even take the USB drive they'd risked their necks for . . .

He bent his head down next to her ear. "Shadowcat, listen t'me now. Drop de drive. De USB in yo'hand . . . drop it. I kin finish dis mission, give us our only chance t'save de world, save our family . . . but you gotta let go'a dat drive, _petite_, come on. _Come on!"_

Kitty choked in a breath of air, her drooping eyes suddenly snapping open wide, too wide . . . and her right hand convulsed, letting the little black USB drive fall onto the floor.

Gambit swept it into his pocket. He hurriedly kissed the first two fingers of his left hand and set them where her forehead should have been. "I'm comin' back for you," he promised, and then he vanished like a shadow down the trapdoor.

* * *

Author's notes:

_Comprends?_: Understand?

_T'inquiète pas_: Don't worry.

_le voilà_: There it is!

And yep, the author does remember that according to X-Men tradition, a 'Russian Fastball' involves Piotr throwing Logan, not Kitty, but what's the fun of writing Evo if you can't tweak history a little bit?


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

* * *

Scott had been given a cell of his own. It wasn't a privilege; his repeated attempts to explain why he refused to open his eyes had gotten him branded belligerent and aggressive, on top of being a dangerous mutant in the first place, and he was now in maximum security—solitary confinement. Which, as far as he was concerned, was great.

He'd torn a strip off the pant cuff of his brand-new prison jumpsuit and tied it around his eyes. It had happened a few times when he'd first come to the Institute that he'd jumped awake, out of some nightmare, and blown a hole in the ceiling or the wall. He couldn't afford such a slip-up right now. And the pressure of the bandage kept his eyelids from flickering, which they did a lot whenever he was awake and alert and voluntarily blinded.

It had been an exhausting day. For hours, he'd been interrogated and "processed" . . . fingerprinted, photographed, weighed and measured, stripped and searched, and bullied endlessly about his eyes, his eyes, his eyes. Apparently eye color was a crucial piece of information for being booked into prison, and no one would take his word for it that they'd been brown the last time he'd checked. But finally, after hours, it had ended, and he'd been left here, in a cell of his very own, to wait for whatever would come next.

He had no idea what time it was, but he felt himself stirred out of sleep by the familiar pull of a telepathic mind. He stirred and moaned a little, a slow, sleepy smile dragging across his face. _Hey._

_Hey, _the whisper echoed back inside his mind. _You can hear me?_

_Well, I've had a lot of practice listening to telepaths, you know. I'm glad you're here . . . I miss you._

_I didn't mean to wake you up._

_It's okay. _His hand reached out unthinkingly, wishing more than expecting to feel her sitting on the edge of his bed. _So are you still mad at me?_

_No, I'm not. I've calmed down. But I am worried about you._

_I'm doing fine. Nice, safe prison cell. Of the two of us, you're probably in more danger right now. Are you two doing okay?_

_Yes, we're fine. We're fine. Don't worry about us._

_Where are you?_

_I'm . . . not really sure, actually._

_Typical Logan, huh?_

_Completely._

Scott let the silence drag for a moment, enjoying the safe, comforting feeling of having her inside his mind with him. It was like cuddling on the couch, only long-distance.

_I should let you go to sleep, _she whispered at last. _You'll need it._

_I hate it when you're right. _He rolled onto his side and settled his head onto his arm. _Check in when you can, okay? But don't crack your head open._

_I'll be all right._

_I love you._

_I love you._

Scott was asleep again within minutes.

* * *

There had been a routine in the Xavier Mansion—a certain sequence of events that often fell into place on weekend nights, one that Rogue hadn't been able to approve of but couldn't bring herself to forbid.

It went something like this. Colossus had always been, and always would be, the early-to-bed-and-early-to-rise sort, so on Fridays and Saturdays when bedtime wasn't enforced and most of the X-Men stayed up watching movies, he excused himself early on and went upstairs.

Rogue wasn't nearly as responsible, but she was no night owl either, and more often than not she found herself drifting in and out of consciousness as the conversation and laughter swirled around her. And then one drift brought her back into wakefulness, and she found herself not in the loud, brightly lit den, twisted into some awkward sleeping position on a chair or sofa or pile of pillows, but curled up on a soft mattress in a moonlit bedroom, Remy's arms around her and his warm breath in her hair.

He knew when she woke up; he was such a light sleeper it was ridiculous. The moment her breath quickened, part wakefulness and part _drat, he did it again, Ah shouldn't be in here, not with Peter asleep on the other side of the room_, he stirred a little, tightening this embrace and smiling, his expression smug, without troubling to open his eyes.

And sometimes he whispered something unhelpful in the dark, something like _Where d'you t'ink you goin'? _or _Not so fast, chère _or just _Stay_, and bent his head down to where his skin could brush hers, knowing perfectly well that his sleepiness would make _her_ sleepy, and that his desire to keep her there was stronger than her desire to save herself embarrassment by sneaking back to her own bed. She'd never managed to make herself sneak away, not until well after dawn, when she opened her eyes and Piotr was already up and gone.

It was this pattern that made Rogue reach out before she was fully awake, her hand wandering vaguely to find the warm breathing solidity of him. When she found nothing, she reached farther, and ended up almost tipping herself out of the huge, soft bed where she'd been buried under a down comforter thicker than any she'd ever seen.

Warren's guest bedroom. No Remy.

Unbidden, a fast, flickering montage of terrifying images rose in her mind—a kiss that burned, Magneto's steady gray eyes meeting Remy's red ones, bullets and sleet beating her skin, mutant versus mutant, vomit and blood. She lay frozen, cold and irrational panic washing over her in waves, pinning her down. It was just a panic attack, the told herself, it wasn't real . . . just her body and mind reacting to the stress they'd been under . . . but she couldn't fight it off, couldn't move, until the icy rush of terror ran its course.

When at length the episode was over, it left her exhausted and drained and shaky, nausea fighting at her throat and the feverish images fading with alarming speed from her mind. She pushed herself up until she was leaning against the headboard and fished blindly for the lamp on the side table. She flinched as the light blazed on, then blinked and looked around.

The room was empty. Of course it was; Kurt and Warren were asleep. But she'd half-expected . . . no, more than half . . . almost _known _something would be there. Because something so often was. It was one of Remy's favorite games: a photograph slipped onto her pillow . . . a note or scribbled drawing or code on a postcard from Alexandria arriving in the mail of a random, unimportant day . . . a trinket or gift tucked away in her backpack or her bathroom cabinet or under her plate at dinner. He loved leaving things where he knew they'd be found, then just stepping back and waiting, watching out of the corner of his eye for his gift or joke to be discovered. It was reverse-thieving—a way to practice his old skills and lavish attention on her without compromising his dignity.

Of course, with her in Warren's guest bedroom above midtown Manhattan and Remy orbiting the planet on Magneto's space station, there was no _way _he could have snuck something in here. But he'd made her think like that before, just for the sake of watching her jump when the seemingly impossible happened anyway.

And now she was waiting . . . holding her breath for a surprise that wasn't going to come.

_This is pathetic. I've been away from him before. I lived in Japan for _two months_ without him. _

But this was different. Then, she'd just _missed _him—and even that had messed her up enough. Now she was surrounded by the crushing dread that something between them had _broken_, seriously, maybe permanently. And right now there was nothing she could do about it, no way to tell just how bad this situation really was or if there were any way to fix it. It was loneliness mixed with helplessness and panic that made this so much worse than the months he'd been gone in pursuit of his mark.

And superficial though it was, before Japan she hadn't known his touch . . . hadn't been addicted to the feel of his bare hands on her skin. The emptiness around her now was almost physically painful.

She pulled the comforter up to her chin, hiding her hands underneath it, and gripped fretfully at her platinum ring. That, at least, still existed. That was a promise from him she could hang onto.

A metal promise.

_ He can't join Magneto. He can't. He can't._

_ But what am Ah gonna do if he does?_

She couldn't answer. All she could do was lie still in the dark, waiting for the stress to pass, slowly letting her exhaustion override her worry and knock her out again.

* * *

Remy heard footsteps above his head, shouting voices. He couldn't make out more than a few words. _Don't panic, _he ordered himself, knowing that the words were a death knell.

The crawlspace under the Professor's desk, the former root cellar, was barely large enough for the computer towers and monitors crammed into it. All of the screens were still dimly active, not yet dropped back into sleep mode. Each screen was divided into four pictures, each showing a feed from a different camera hidden somewhere in the house. One of the cameras had to be just above the door to the office; it showed a clear but jerky picture of four soldiers kneeling around the downed Kitty, unsure of what to do.

He had to know what they were saying. If she went solid, they'd move her, and if he didn't hear where, she was gone. He scanned the computer setup for speakers, but there weren't any. This wasn't a home theater. There was a headphone jack in the central CPU, but he didn't have any . . . no, wait . . .

He pulled open his coat and grabbed for the left-hand pocket of Rogue's jacket. _Please be in there, come on . . . _if she'd left it to charge last night, he was out of ideas . . . _saint ciel_, the jacket smelled like her . . .

One stroke of luck. The mp3 player she'd received for Christmas was safely tucked away there, the headphone cord wrapped around it. Remy whipped it loose, guided the plug into the jack, and fitted one of the earbuds into his ear, muffling the other inside a closed fist. He selected the office feed and nudged up the volume.

"It's gotta be a hologram. A decoy."

"It's not. Didn't you read your briefing? The one called Shadowcat can do this."

"How's she still awake? She can't be more than a hundred and ten pounds. One shot should have knocked her out as soon as she got hit."

"She's a _mutant_."

"How'd he even know to tranq her? How'd he even know she was here? He was supposed to be on patrol at the north end."

_Good question._ Gambit switched camera feeds, pulling up the audio for the camera positioned in the hall. The soldier who'd shot Kitty was lying on his back in a pile of rubble with two medics crouched over him. Gambit couldn't get a good look at his face, but he'd bet anything the man had some pretty severe burns. He hadn't been pulling punches when he'd thrown that card.

"We've gotta get him life-flighted. Call the chopper."

"Take it easy, soldier. Don't try to talk. We're getting you out of here."

No information from that quarter. Gambit switched back.

"Command says this one poses an extreme containment problem," announced one soldier, his radio still held up to his face. "They're ordering immediate transfer to Solitude 4."

"How are we supposed to transfer it when we can't even touch it?"

_Solitude 4, _Remy mouthed, imprinting the words in his brain. His fingers were tingling with charge, and he had to breathe deep to keep from blowing something up.

"Wait . . . her eyes are closed." One of the soldiers took a knee, hanging his weapon on his shoulder. He tentatively reached out one hand and poked at Kitty's collarbone. His hand made contact. "She's solid. Alert the transport. We gotta get her moved before she wakes up."

Remy could feel his fingers digging into his palms, and had to work very hard to tune out the litany of curses playing through his mind. They were going to take Kitty, and there was nothing he could do to stop them. His teammate, Rogue's roommate, the little sister he'd never had, was being strapped onto a stretcher and carried away, and there was _nothing he could do about it._

Colossus was going to kill him. But hopefully not before he could kill the soldiers walking around over his head.

_Hold onto your hats, Solitude 4. The big bad mutants are coming._

* * *

Jean woke up shivering. Of course she had her uniform, which handled temperature change very well, and the super-tech lightweight blanket wrapped around her, and the fire she was huddled against (dying down now; that was probably why she'd woken up) . . . but there was no getting around the fact that the middle of the night in March in inland Canada was just going to be flat-out _cold_.

She had to get up and put some more wood on the fire, but she didn't want to. Cold as she was, it was going to be colder once she moved.

And of course, there was Logan, barely visible beyond the flames, sleeping sitting up against a tree. She'd never known him to just lie down on the ground and go to sleep when he wasn't under a roof. On dozens of camping trips when she was twelve, thirteen, fourteen years old (Logan had called them 'wilderness survival training', but the big bag of marshmallows she and Scott had always smuggled along tended to take the intimidation factor out of it) he'd always slept like that, propped up on something, arms folded, chin on chest, seeming somehow to always be watching even from the depths of unconsciousness.

Dang. She hated growing up. If she'd still been a pre-adolescent on this trip, she'd have been perfectly within her rights to worm her way over to Logan, leaving her dignity but not her sleeping bag behind, and snuggle up next to his leg and go back to sleep. His leg was warm. She was cold. End of story. No complications.

And then she'd grown up, and everything had changed, and here she was shivering by herself. _Drat_ it all.

She reluctantly wiggled out of the blanket, her breath misting in front of her face and her skin recoiling under the onslaught of cold air. They'd set up a decent stockpile of wood before the sun had gone down, and even in the dim silver light she could spot it. She grabbed the first two big logs that came under her hands and tossed them onto the low fire. New, young, yellow flames started to lick out from underneath them, brightening up their campsite almost at once. She snuggled back into the warm but flimsy tech-blanket, wiggled closer to the fire, and closed her eyes with grim determination. She was going to get back to sleep if it killed her.

"Your hair's gonna catch," Logan's voice informed her.

"Good," Jean muttered, but she hiked the blanket up over her head and tucked it in around her face.

The blanket captured the heat quickly, and within minutes, even though her back was still pretty cold, her face, stomach, and arms were just this side of scorched, which felt wonderful. She pulled back a little, raising up her head to squint futilely through the light. She knew he was awake out there. "You okay? Are your toes going to fall off?"

She heard him chuckle. "Nah. I'm good."

"Okay."

"Can't sleep?"

"I'm sure I'll get there eventually." She laid her head back down and hugged herself a little tighter. "I'm just thinking."

"Plenty of time to do that tomorrow. I think we've still got a long way to walk."

"It's hard to just say you're going to think about something 'tomorrow'." She sighed and rolled onto her back, to look up at the sky and to toast her shoulder a little bit. "Logan, when did everything get weird?"

It was a vague enough question, but he knew what she meant. He was silent for a moment, seemingly debating whether or not answering would be a good idea. At length, he responded, "Biloxi."

She turned her head towards the sound of his voice. "Really? Biloxi? In the _hospital?_"

"Why does it matter?"

"It . . . doesn't, I guess. I just . . . I don't know. I hadn't thought about it. I guess I kind of figured it would have been . . . maybe prom night, or something. Some time when I'd at least washed my hair." She stopped and thought about it a little more, then amended, "I guess prom night would have been weird. I was seventeen. And I think you were AWOL that week because you didn't want to be around all the drama. So it would have been both weird and inconvenient."

That got an actual laugh. "Go to sleep, Red."

* * *

"Where have you been?" Hank demanded as soon as Gambit crested the hill and came into view. "We've been waiting for you for over an hour; we thought something must have happened to . . . where's Kitty?"

Gambit craned his head back to keep himself from leaning forward onto his knees. Four miles over uneven, uphill ground with all the legions of hell on his heels (or, at least, that's what it felt like) had taken a lot out of him, and his lungs didn't seem to be able to supply the oxygen for which his brain was screaming. The two coats, which had been such a good idea only a couple of hours ago, were trapping all his body heat. He could feel it rushing up through his collar onto his face and neck, and yet his throat burned with cold.

"_Where's Kitty_?" Hank demanded again. "Gambit, _where is she?"_

"Dey took her," Gambit gasped. "I couldn't . . . do nothin' . . ."

"You _left her behind_?" Ray demanded; it seemed he was flying co-pilot on the pickup mission.

"We gonna get her back. Don' worry. She ain't hurt—"

"You left Kitty? You _never _leave a teammate!"

"I _know_ dat, genius, I _tried—_"

"Where is she?" Hank asked.

"Dey took her in a chopper. South. Talked about headin' for someplace called 'Solitude 4'."

"When?"

"Maybe four hours. Long gone. But Cerebro—"

"Oh, you mean the pile of screws and circuit boards that Forge is puttering over?"

"Not ready yet?"

"Not even a little bit. But they took her alive, right?"

Gambit nodded, not sparing the time or breath to explain that if they hadn't, he'd have sent the whole Institute up in a fireball of epic proportions before he'd have left her body in enemy hands.

"Then get in the plane. We'll get her back. Catch your breath. You look like roadkill."

"Thanks," Gambit sighed, wishing the sigh didn't sound as much like a gasp as it did. He couldn't run in cold air. It burned. And Kitty was far away, drugged and alone in a place called Solitude 4, having who-knew-what done to her, because he'd done a last-minute rewrite to the plan instead of staying with her, where he should have been.

It should have been him. Why hadn't it been him? He'd been scrambling all over the house—anyone could have taken him out at any time—how had they found Kitty first?

There was nothing he could do about it from here. He needed a phone and a computer and telepaths and firepower—needed Avalon.

_We'll get her back. Before tomorrow sunrise. We will. Or so help me there will be hell to pay._

* * *

Kitty dragged herself from strange, drugged, vivid dreams. Gambit . . . the USB drive . . . Scott through the wall . . . black sky and white stars, shaking and steel . . . Gambit, she was supposed to be on this mission with Gambit, where _was _he? If anything had happened to him, Rogue was going to kill her . . .

Her eyes levered open. Her jaw had been hanging slack, and as she'd been lying on her side, there was a trail of saliva down her cheek. _Gross._ She was seeing triple, and the three pictures refused to stay put relative to one another. Either there was a loud treble speaker that wasn't quite plugged in right somewhere right next to her head, or her ears were ringing something fierce. And . . . oh, yes. She was going to puke.

She rolled onto her stomach, managing through will rather than muscle coordination to push herself off the floor. That gave her something like three inches of clearance between her face and the small puddle of what her stomach decided to force out of her mouth. When she rolled herself away from it, the three pictures were making smaller circles. If she held still . . . which she did for a few minutes, lying on her back and gasping while her mouth burned . . . they almost came into focus as one unified image.

It was dim, but not dark, around her. Warm enough, and no breeze, so she had to be inside. She was lying on hard, flat floor, and could hear her breath echoing off walls that were close around her. And in the ceiling directly above her was a round something, a big disc.

When her head settled enough to allow her to turn it, she took stock of her immediate surroundings. She was lying on a raised platform, round like the disc above her, maybe seven feet across, walled in by plexiglass. She felt like a deposit slip in one of those tubes at the drive-through bank, the kind that came back with candy in them if the teller was in a good mood. The cylinder was in the middle of a big, bare, industrial room. One wall of it was windows, through which she could see a control room full of computers. Two men were inside, leaning back in chairs, not paying more than passing attention to her.

She took stock. All limbs and digits present and working. She took a deep breath and held it, feeling herself drop into a strong, steady phase. Good. Good, good. As long as she could phase, she wasn't in that much trouble. Unless she was in an airplane, but it didn't feel like she was. Or deep underground . . . that was possible . . . but one problem at a time. Step one was standing up.

She curled her chin into her chest and pulled herself up, carefully and slowly, staying phased out. She was going to walk out of here, and the two guards could just watch her do it.

Standing up made the ringing get a lot louder. The floor wobbled underfoot, and black smudginess invaded her peripheral vision. Well, she could clear her head later, after she got out of here. She teetered forward to step through the plexiglass and off the round platform.

The second her foot met the barrier, a goshawful jolt shot up her leg through her whole body. It felt something like running on a foot full of pins and needles and something like jumping into a cold swimming pool and something like her phase gone horribly, horribly wrong. It shocked her, and it _hurt_. So much so that she fell down and puked again, coughing up the little bit of acid her stomach had managed to generate in the past couple of minutes. This time, she didn't get up.

A voice crackled through the ringing in her ears, amplified by speakers—a male voice. Raising her head, she matched the words to the movements of the mouth of one of her guards. "Yes, sir. It has regained consciousness. No, containment appears to be holding. We'll update you if the situation changes."

Containment. They had some kind of energy field around her. The jerks had _planned_ for this.

_Think, think, think._ She couldn't think. She was too hurt and too scared to think.

If there was an energy field, there had to be a generator, and it would be electronic, which meant she could take it out. Probably under the platform. She took a deep breath, phased out again, and pressed her hand down through the floor.

Another shock. She blacked out.

It didn't take her very long to come around, because when she did the disembodied voice as reporting to its superiors that she was "testing the defenses." Like she was a velociraptor in _Jurassic Park_.

_I want my team. I want to go home._

Just for the sake of being thorough, she tried kicking the side of the tube. But after two shocks, a blackout and a drug hangover, she wasn't strong enough to kick her way through even a regular pane of glass, and she knew it. Her heel bounced off.

"Hey," she called to the men behind the window. "You better let me out of here! When my friends find out where I am, they're gonna _roast_ you. I want a lawyer, and a phone call. Who's in charge out there? Hey! Look at me when I'm yelling at you, jerkwad!"

"Yes, sir," said the voice. "Gassing now."

"Excuse you," Kitty rebutted, but her heart stuttered with panic. Phasing would keep her safe from darts and pills and just about any other drug delivery system you could name, but she still had to breathe. So no matter what she did, she'd have to inhale the thick gray gas that was now pouring from vents in the ceiling above her.

She held her breath anyway.

_Please don't do this to me . . . please don't hurt me, I just want to go home, let me go home, please . . ._

Panic used up oxygen too fast. She was out of air. Kitty Pryde opened her mouth and gasped, drawing in a lungful of cloying gray fumes.

Shadowcat of the X-Men could not get out.

* * *

Author's Notes:

_Saint ciel: _Holy heaven.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

* * *

The repercussions came faster than Gambit had expected. He'd hoped for at least fifteen minutes between when the X-Jet landed on Avalon station and when Piotr figured out that Kitty wasn't on it. It seemed that there had been some radio or telepathic communication in the half-hour he'd been unconscious, because when he, Hank, and Ray descended from the plane, there was a crowd pouring into the re-pressurized hangar, composed of one very big, very angry Russian and a couple dozen other people who didn't know what was about to happen but wanted to be there to see it.

"WHERE IS SHE?"

Gambit held his hands up in surrender, for all the good it did him. Piotr could swing punches that would send even Logan reeling. Gambit heard several people shouting in the fractions of a second before the punch connected with the side of his head. He ducked, but twenty years of thieves' training weren't enough to get him out of the way in time. Every sense whited out with pain. He caught himself before he hit the floor, landing in a crouch with part of his weight supported on one hand, and waited there for everything to stop spinning.

"You left her behind . . . you ran to save your own skin, you filthy coward!"

On previous occasions in Gambit's life when he had Colossus had resorted to physical violence as a means of conflict resolution, one punch had usually been enough to settle whatever score had been between them. This precedent meant that Gambit was completely unprepared when the next blow landed, as he was trying to stand up. He hit the side of the plane, seeing stars.

His hand found the staff in his inside pocket. It whipped out, almost of its own accord, and diverted a third punch barely in time.

"He left Kitty behind."

"What? He wouldn't do that!"

"Where is she? Is she okay?"

"I wouldn't've left her," Gambit protested, dodging away from the plane so he had more room to stay clear of Colossus. "I couldn't . . ."

Another punch. He brought his staff up to block it, but his arms nearly buckled under the force.

"She was your _teammate_!"

"We gon' get her back!"

"You were supposed to be the _great thief_," block, "the _professional_," block, "so why would you leave a teammate behind? Was it because _he _told you to?"

From somewhere beyond Gambit's very fuzzy peripheral vision, Magneto's voice observed, "It's gratifying to know that under stress we're all acting rationally, displaying charity and compassion. Score one for Charles's utopia."

Gambit caught another blow, a glancing hit to his ribcage that knocked at least some of the wind out of him. He lashed back, whipping the end of his staff at the side of Colossus's head to win a split-second of recovery time.

It was like hitting granite. Taking out Colossus simply required more force than Gambit's arms could produce. He just shook off the blow like Gambit had never even hit him. "Half an hour this morning he spent in private conversation with Magneto, and tonight he leaves Kitty behind at the first sign of danger!"

"Call me traitor," Gambit hissed. "Go on, do it."

The cloud of murmuring, questioning voices still pressed around him.

"He wouldn't . . ."

"Professor Xavier would have known."

"The Professor can't read him."

"Telepaths can't read him."

"Didn't he lose his staff in the fight?"

"Rogue would have—"

"Kitty—"

"If the Professor and Jean can't read him—"

"Was it a trap?"

"Who would have known they were coming?"

"I didn't think anything could catch Kitty."

"Couldn't he have gotten her out?"

"If they can't read him, how can we know . . ."

Colossus was coming at him again, and he knew with sickening clarity that he couldn't take one more hit. His thumb found the second button in the middle of the staff, and the wicked, curved blades sprang free. They sang like Wolverine's claws. Colossus pulled up short, the bright edge of the raised blade inches from his neck.

"Where'd he get that?" demanded the disembodied voices. "I've never seen that." "Could his staff do that?"

"Already flaunting your wages," Colossus snarled.

"_If_ I'd sold out de X-Men," Gambit hissed back, feinting a jab with the bladed staff when Colossus tried to move closer, "I'd be chargin' a lot more dan dis. My loyalty don't come dat cheap."

"But it is for sale."

He was armoring up. Gambit went for his cards.

"STOP IT!"

The voice was Storm's. Blinding light sliced between Gambit and Colossus, a guided overload in the electrical system. When the spots in his vision cleared, Storm was standing between them, one hand raised to each of them and her eyes white.

"STAND DOWN," she commanded. "You are X-Men. Stand down this instant or surrender your badges."

It wasn't an empty threat. With Scott out of action, Storm was field commander, and if she demanded their Institute marks, they were done.

Gambit killed the charge in the cards he held, letting them scatter harmlessly onto the floor. The blades whipped back into the staff and the staff collapsed in on itself. Colossus's armor plates receded, and he stood at parade rest.

"I don't know how this happened," Storm continued as her pupils reappeared, "and right now, I don't care. If Kitty is gone, then get her back. Understood?"

Gambit nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

"Good. And what about your mission?"

Gambit dove into his pocket and tossed the USB drive at Storm. "_Le voilà_," he spat. "Yo' goods, delivered as ordered. An' she might have traded her life for it, so mind y'don'leave it lyin' around."

He left the hangar, warily, making sure to stay out of Colossus's range and not making eye contact with Magneto, whose gaze he could feel burning into the side of his head. "Where's de professor?" he asked of the group in general, which was giving him a wide berth on the way out.

"Upstairs," said Bobby, "still working on the new Cerebro with Forge."

"We still got dat untraceable phone?"

"I think so."

"Good. I gon'be on it."

He left without a backwards glance, his face and ribs throbbing with pain and anger and humiliation. His _friends_. Those people back there were his _friends_.

Or they had been.

"Hey, Gambit?"

He spun on his heel, too quickly, and Lance jumped. He'd followed him out into the corridor. "What?"

He knew Lance was scared of him; he'd given the younger boy good reason, back when he'd been in Magneto's employ. Lance had obviously not forgotten. But he kept talking, regardless. "If there's anything I can do to help, man, to save her . . . I'm not exactly covert ops, but if you need anything shaken into a million pieces, you know who to call."

Gambit gave him a glance-over. "What you wearin', Alvers?"

Lance glanced down at himself. Somebody had given him a gray Institute uniform, the standard-issue kind the younger students wore. He shrugged. "I didn't bring a change of clothes."

Gambit allowed the corner of his mouth to twitch in ironic amusement. "Wearin' de X don't make you one a'dem. Take it from me."

* * *

"Wake up, Mutie. Your lawyer's here."

Scott jolted awake; his eyelids quivered, but his makeshift bandage held them down. He rolled off the mattress and felt around for the slip-on sneakers he'd been given as part of his oh-so-stylish prison uniform. He didn't even know what color it was. Probably orange.

The voice outside continued, "Come to the door, turn your back, and put your hands through the door slot."

"Okay. I'm coming. Hold on." Once the shoes were on, he stood up and followed the wall around to the door. Finding the slot, he turned and offered up his hands and felt the cuffs click into place. The left one was about one click too tight and was uncomfortable, but he didn't mention it. Probably wasn't any point.

The guard escorted him (which was nice; having a hand on his shoulder kept him from running into walls) out of the cell block. Though he wasn't planning on escaping from this place, he still counted off his steps, memorizing the building's layout in his head. It was something Logan had trained into him, back in the old days . . . how to pull information from his other senses, in case there ever came a day when he wouldn't have the glasses to save him. He'd griped about the training regimen at the time—he'd been thirteen; he griped about everything—but Jean had cheerfully done all the drills with him, which suddenly made training his favorite part of the day. And what Logan had taught him had saved his life more than once. So he counted off the steps, out of habit and loyalty and trust in his teacher's judgment.

The guard brought him into a smaller room (small and bare-walled; he could tell by the sound) and left him inside, locking the door behind him. Scott stood still, preferring to wait for some kind of input instead of stumbling all over a space he didn't know with his hands tied behind his back.

"Mr. Summers?" It was a man's voice; there were footsteps that accompanied it, coming towards him. "I'm Jeremy Royal; I'm your lawyer."

Scott bobbed his head in lieu of a handshake. "Nice to meet you, but what happened to the guy I was talking to last night?"

"Oh, your court-appointed defense attorney?" asked the other, with a little hint of patronizing laughter in his voice. "He's been supplanted. Royal, Baker, and Harrison are about the best trial lawyers that can be had for love or money, and we're at your disposal courtesy of Mr. Warren Worthington, the Third."

"Warren?" Scott repeated. "Warren sent you guys?"

"Called me at three this morning. He says, and I quote, 'Knock 'em dead.' I assume he meant it as a metaphor."

"Let's hope," Scott laughed. "Man, I owe Warren the favor of the century."

"Yes, you do," Royal agreed. "Have a seat. You need a hand?"

"Yes, please." He felt a steadying hand on his elbow, which led him to a hard plastic chair.

"I like the eyes, by the way. Very Oedipus."

"Wasn't what I was going for, but I guess it could be worse."

He heard the squeak of the chair across from him as Royal sat down. "You're being moved to a facility in Manhattan in about an hour, so we don't have much time to talk. Three points that need to be covered: first, what happened; second, where are the others; and third, what about your glasses?"

"I'll tell you everything you want to know about questions one and three," Scott told him, "but I'm going to have to tell you flat-out: I'm not telling you, or anyone, where my teammates are. It's life and death."

"That's a little melodramatic, don't you think?"

"You won't think so after I answer question one. I will say that they're out of the country . . . _way _out. But the whole point of this thing is to keep them safe, so that information goes with me to the grave. That okay with you?"

Royal sighed. "We'll work with it. But there goes plea bargaining. So how about question one?" Scott heard a rapid series of clicks: a pen being prepped for action.

"Okay. Well, the house went into lockdown at about three a.m. . . ."

"Pause. Back up. Your house has lockdown?"

Jeremy Royal was quick, but he was thorough. For everything Scott told him, he had at least two clarifying questions. And he began to be very, very glad that he was recounting this story this way, and not straight-off to a judge and jury, because as he talked he began to realize, as he hadn't for a long time, just how weird his life would look to an outsider. He had to explain why he knew what everyone in the house had been thinking during the entire raid, how his college-freshman housemate had "handled" two marine combat helicopters and a missile launcher, why Storm slept in the attic and Kitty had to fly Velocity, what the purpose of the Danger Room was and why they'd left it in ruins behind them.

"Can you be absolutely sure?" Royal asked, his pen scratching furiously, as he swung back to the crux of the matter. "From what you're saying, things got pretty loud pretty fast. Are you absolutely positive that you were never placed under official arrest . . . never given a chance to surrender?"

"One hundred percent positive."

"Were you contacted by any law enforcement or military agency before the raid? Served with a warrant, maybe?"

"Never once. We were waiting for it, hoping, but there was never any word at all."

"Good. Well, not _good_. But it gives us a lot to work with. We're almost out of time, so . . ." The pen clicked a few times again. "Your eyes. Did you ever have a formal prescription for the glasses you wear?"

"No. They were custom designed by Professor Xavier and Dr. MacTaggart."

"Who?"

"Moira MacTaggart, of the Muir Island Research Institute in Scotland."

"Do you know how to contact her?"

"I did. Her home was raided the same night. She and her husband are on the run somewhere. They're not with my team, that's all I know."

"Do the powers cause you pain?"

"No, not directly."

"Are you going to suffer any long-term damage from not having your glasses?"

"I don't think so. Before they were made, I was stuck like this for about three months. Unless I walk off a cliff, I should be okay."

"We're going to do what we can to get them back to you, but don't get your hopes up too high. Without a prescription or a medical reason, it's going to be hard to convince a judge to give you something that could be interpreted as a weapon so easily."

"Everyone in here would be a lot safer if I had them on."

"Don't say that to anybody else. It sounds like a threat."

"I know it does," Scott sighed. "I've never been able to get that sentence to come out right."

"I knew what you meant. Can you read Braille?"

"Yes, I can. I'm out of practice, but I can manage."

There was a sharp triple tap of knuckles on a metal door. "And now for a word from our sponsors," Royal deadpanned. "I'll see you in New York for the arraignment."

"Looking forward to it."

* * *

Rogue and Kurt both slept later than they meant to. When Rogue rolled out of bed and padded, barefoot, out into the living room, Kurt was still sprawled on the big white couch with his eyes closed and his mouth open. He had one leg kicked up over the back of the sofa and a fleece blanket twisted around his torso. Warren was in the kitchen, frying things that smelled greasy and maple-y and good.

"Good morning," he called over his shoulder. "I didn't want to wake you guys, so I called in sick to work."

Rogue combed her mass of heavy tangled curls back off her face. "Ah kinda figured rich guys didn't have to call in sick."

"I'm not rich enough that I don't have to call in. Just rich enough that when I do, nobody believes me but I get away with it anyway. Well, mostly. My father will probably decide to check on me, but he's a late riser, too. You two should be long gone by then."

Rogue couldn't think of anything to say to this, so she turned back to the living room to shake Kurt awake. She'd already reached for his shoulder before realizing she had no gloves on; they were still on the nightstand in the guest room. She picked up a pillow instead and poked him with it. "Kurt, wake up. There's breakfast."

Kurt muttered, moaned, rolled over, fell off the couch, ported back onto it, and sat up. "Breakfast?"

Breakfast was substantial; by Warren's own admission, it was the one thing he could cook. While they'd been asleep, somebody had delivered a plethora of useful things: a change of clothes for each of them, a pair of backpacks, a prepaid cell phone, a debit card with a four-digit PIN on a post-it stuck to the back.

"Don't be shy about the card," Warren instructed, "but don't go crazy, either. Visa's gonna start asking awkward questions if you buy a yacht."

"Like 'What did he do with the yacht he bought last month?'" Rogue asked.

"Sure, take a stab at the rich guy. We're easy targets."

"Can anybody track us through this?" Kurt asked, flipping through the instructions on how to activate the phone.

"I don't think so. But keep it turned off when you're not using it, just in case."

"Ah really don't know how tuh thank you for all this, Warren," Rogue told him.

"Just save the world and we'll call it even."

"Zat's our job," said Kurt, clicking the battery case off the back.

Rogue tossed him the debit card. "Activate that, would ya? Ah gotta brush my teeth or Ah'm gonna kill somebody."

By the time this was accomplished, Kurt had gotten both phone and card working and was ignoring the massive amounts of breakfast available to him . . . very strange, for Kurt . . . to type in a number.

"You be careful who you're callin'," Rogue warned.

"I just want to talk to Amanda."

"Don't you tell her where we are."

He pointed at himself with one finger of his free two-fingered hand. "Not stupid."

The phone started ringing. Rogue turned away, embarrassed to eavesdrop on Kurt and Amanda's private conversation but unsure how to leave without being obvious.

"I just vant to make sure she's okay," Kurt continued. "She doesn't have a class this—"

There was a click. The volume was up too loud on the phone; Rogue and Warren could both hear every word. "Hello?"

"Amanda?" Kurt asked.

"_Kurt_!"

Rogue whipped around, all pretense of not listening abandoned. There was something way beyond strain in Amanda's voice, too sharp and tense to be explained even by worry for Kurt's safety. The others could hear it, too; Warren's wings raised up, arched and slightly open, and the fur on the back of Kurt's neck rose like that of an angry cat.

"Are you okay?" Amanda hissed through the phone. "_Tell me you're okay!_"

"I am; I'm okay. What's wrong?"

"They took me out of class yesterday . . . two guys in suits, they showed me their i.d.s, they had the Marines logo on them . . . they asked me a bunch of questions about you and the team, and I tried not to tell them anything, but they might have guessed stuff, and now . . ." Her voice dropped to a hiss. "There was a car parked up the street from my house all night, and somebody I didn't know hanging around outside my class this morning. I think I'm being watched, Kurt . . . I don't know what to do . . ."

Kurt gripped the phone with both hands. "Amanda, listen. It's going to be okay. Ve're coming to get you, okay? Ve're gonna get you out. Sit tight. I'm coming. I promise."

"Please hurry. I'm scared."

"I know. Just stay calm. Hang up and erase zis number."

"Okay. I love you."

"I love you."

The call cut off.

Kurt looked up and met his sister's eyes. Rogue shot a glance to Warren, including him in the circle of their worry rather than letting him spiral in his own.

"You know she's bait," she observed at last.

"Yeah," said Kurt.

"You know they're waiting for you to come after her."

"Yeah."

Rogue sighed. She knew what they had to do . . . what she would do without stopping to think if the circumstance were hers to face. "We'll figure it out. But we'd better get going. We've got a lot of ground to cover."

"Who is she?" Warren asked.

"His girlfriend," Rogue told him. "She's a friend of the team, and besides, she knows a lot more about the X-Men than Ah want the CIA knowin', or the Marines or whoever."

"Okay. Call me when you get her out. If I don't hear from you by tomorrow, I'm sending the lawyers to find out what they did with you."

"Thanks." Rogue turned back to Kurt; he was still sitting motionless on a bar stool. "Kurt," she started gently. When he didn't look at her, she tried again, louder. "Kurt."

Still no response. Rogue took a deep breath—she hadn't tried this for a couple of weeks, and with her nerves shot all to heck the move was dangerous—forced all the stress and worry and wanting out of her system, and gripped Kurt's shoulder with her bare hand. He jumped and his eyes snapped back into focus.

"Eat breakfast," she ordered. "Ah'm gonna get dressed. Then we're gone. We're gonna find the rest of the names on the list, and then we're gonna get Amanda, and then we make the rendezvous and get everybody out of here. Okay?"

"Okay." Kurt glanced down at the hand on his shoulder. "That's, um, tingling . . ."

Rogue snatched her hand away. "Sorry." She gave her head a shake, seeing if she'd accidentally absorbed any of him. Better not try that again today. "Just . . . don't worry. We're gonna get Amanda. Ah promise."

"Oh, I know." Kurt's gentle, playful gray eyes were suddenly hard and fierce. "And I know just how ve're going to do it."

* * *

"Look at that," Logan ordered. "You see that?"

Jean looked up where he was pointing. It strained her neck; she'd been looking down at her feet, trying to pick out a path on the wooded uphill slope, for what had to be hours now. "See what? I don't see anything."

"Right there, about fifteen feet up. Can you get up there?"

Jean lifted herself off the ground and shot up along the tree trunk he was indicating. It was a tall, straight, massive pine, with snow caked against the north side of it. But where the reddish, scaly bark was still visible, she saw what he was looking at.

"They're cuts," she called to him. She reached around herself and awkwardly fished a pen light out of the side pocket of her backpack. She twisted its beam into a tiny, sharp line and shone it into the hole. "Deep. Maybe an inch long, about two inches apart."

"Look just below your knee. See another one?"

She dropped. "Yeah. This one's horizontal, and a little wider than the other, I think."

"That's her. She's been here. We're on the right track."

Jean dropped out of the air a little faster than she needed to, just for the childish pleasure of landing in a pile of snow. Brushing herself off, she asked, "She's got a . . . a _foot claw_?"

"Yep. And watch out for it, 'cuz it stings. Handy for climbing, though. I wish they'd thought of that when they were putting me together." He scooped up a handful of old, grainy snow . . . the most plentiful kind, here at the end of the season . . . and took a bite. Jean wouldn't have dared try that, for fear she'd get some sort of horrible intestinal bug, but Logan could afford to keep himself hydrated with whatever was handy.

"And I wish I'd waited to get a cell phone until they released the kind with video cameras in them. There's always that upgraded model." She tucked the flashlight back into her pack and looked up at him. "Do you remember any of this? Any idea how much farther we've got to go?"

He shook his head. "Not a clue. Sorry."

Jean cast her glance out over the valley below them. They'd left anything man-made behind them long ago. Now as far as she could see, forested mountains scattered with snow fanned out in all directions. The day was bright and clear . . . almost hot, if you were hiking hard . . . and at the far end of the valley they'd just climbed out of, she could see a frozen lake twinkling in the sunlight. "I can't remember the last time I saw something so beautiful. If I'd ever been here before, I wouldn't forget."

"It would depend on what happened here."

Jean turned to him. "Why? What happened here?"

He turned away, leaning his weight forward into the mountain as he started hiking again. "Hopefully nothing important."

* * *

Against every urging of his will, Gambit felt his mind wandering off topic again. It wasn't anger, or even worry about Rogue. It was just plain, simple exhaustion—the string of disjointed logic that a mind wanders into just before shutting off. He'd been running on little sleep and lots of adrenalin for somewhere around thirty-six hours. He was still too keyed up to feel tired, but the last two days were taking their toll.

But he had to keep pushing. Kitty was out there someplace, in the cuffs that should have been his.

He'd found the phone, and a computer—a fast, expensive screen fixed to a glossy black table top that sparkled with touch controls. In sharp contrast to the modern machine, the rest of the table was covered with plain old paper. He'd pulled a half ream out of the printer, found a piece of broken pencil in one of his pockets, and proceeded to 'figure it out.' If he'd had the time, most of this scribble-work would have been done in his head, crafted and fine-tuned over the course of weeks in the quiet moments between activities and people demanding his attention. But he had no time for that, and no more room for error. This had to be done fast, and done right. And that meant lots of paper covered in notes and sketches and diagrams and equations, the inner workings of his sophisticated and specialized thief's brain spread out across the table and the floor like a sloppy mental autopsy. Ashes of rejected plans and miscalculations were scattered over everything like a year's worth of dust.

Exhaustion quickened his reflexes but impeded his judgment; when he heard the door hiss behind him, he was up out of his chair and whipped around before he even realized he'd been startled. His defensiveness was half justified, as one of the two people walking up to him was Colossus; but the other was Storm, her hands gently outspread in the universal sign of peaceful intentions.

Remy struggled to slow down his breathing and his heart rate, or relax his tensed muscles, with limited success. "What now?" he demanded, his voice snapping like the crack of a whip.

If Storm was bothered, she didn't show it. "I came to see if I could persuade you to rest a few hours. You're exhausted."

"Yeah? And what shape's Kitty in?" He turned back to the table, wishing he didn't need it to help him balance. "Dis ain't de time." He turned his glare turned to Colossus. "And what d'you want? Need me t'turn de other cheek?" He hadn't seen himself in a mirror, but he knew from the constant ache in the side of his face that he had to be turning some pretty spectacular colors where Colossus's fist had landed.

"I came . . . to apologize," Colossus admitted. "When I heard she was gone, I . . .you were the first convenient target."

"Gonna tell me you're sure it wasn't my fault?"

"No."

Gambit sank back down into his chair. "Good. Smart man." His face and his pride still hurt, but he had the spine to acknowledge that if their situations had been reversed, he would hardly have behaved much better. And he wouldn't have had the guts to apologize, either.

"I am not certain who to trust," Colossus elaborated. "This is my team, and I do not think ill of any member of it. But to trap Kitty Pryde requires planning, and information. Information must come from somewhere."

Gambit nodded. "We got a traitor in our midst someplace. An' cards on de table . . . I'd have a hard time provin' it ain't me. Especially as I walked outta dat place an' Kitty was carried. If I weren't sittin' in dis skin, even I'd figure I'd sold her out. I'm de only person I know who'd sell _her _but save _me_."

"My thoughts exactly."

"We know too little to deal with this problem, if problem it is," Storm told them. "The priority is Kitty. Gambit, I am no master thief, but at least I know the vocabulary. If I can help you, I am here."

In that moment, if Gambit had still been able to touch people, he probably would have kissed her. It was easy to forget that Storm, too, was a thief . . . not Guild, not in his league, but a thief nonetheless, who could think the way he needed to be thinking and catch the oversights that he knew were escaping his exhausted brain. And on an endless day that had seen everyone, even his Rogue, turn their backs on him, Storm's benefit of the doubt was the most precious thing he could have been offered.

"I'm gonna need y'both, actually," he admitted. "Dis gonna be at least a three-man job, an' we gonna have to time it to de second if we want t'make it out alive. Here." He dug through a pile of papers and extracted a printout. "Dis de Solitude 4 base."

"Where did you get this?" Storm asked.

"Bullied de New York Guild again. But dis de last time I get t'pull dat . . . dey _royally_ peeved at me now. Dey hate doin' favors for t'eives dat don't bust jobs." He'd also added 'deadbeat thief' to 'traitor' and 'coward' on his list of insults he'd never had to take before. He shook it off—revenge was for later. "Pull up chairs an' take a look. I'll show y' what I'm plannin' here."

* * *

"Stand up," Jeremy Royal whispered to Scott, giving him a nudge. Scott carefully rose to his feet. At Royal's suggestion, he'd removed the rag bandage for this appearance, which made him look slightly less crazy but did raise the risk that his eyes would jostle open if he was bumped or startled.

"Scott Christopher Summers," said an unfamiliar male voice, in front of and slightly above him.

"Judge," Royal whispered.

Scott swallowed and addressed the voice. "Yes, your honor."

He stood still, his eyes dancing and squirming under his eyelids, as the judge read off the list. Refusing to register under the Mutant Registration Act. Aiding and abetting others in their refusal to register. Resisting arrest. Aiding and abetting others in resisting arrest. Conspiracy. Attempted murder. Murder.

He heard a rustle of paper near him. Royal spoke up. "Your honor, my client is a beta-level mutant whose powers prevent him opening his eyes without risking serious injury to himself and others. Without special corrective lenses, he is functionally blind. We therefore request that reasonable accommodations be made to him, and that he be allowed use of his custom glasses to read the charges presented."

"Your honor," said a woman's voice off to Scott's left, "the defendant's optical equipment is not a pair of corrective lenses, but a specialized tool designed to weaponize his mutant abilities. To give him access to this tool would endanger the lives of all those around him."

"Agreed."

"In that case, your honor, the defense requests that this and all other legally required printed materials be provided in Braille."

"So ruled. Are you prepared to enter a plea at this time, or would you prefer to wait until after a Braille transcription has been provided?"

"No, your honor. We're ready now."

"Very well. Scott Christopher Summers, how do you plead to the presented charges?"

"I plead not guilty," Scott intoned.

"Noted."

"Your honor," said the woman's voice that Scott could now confidently label as the prosecuting attorney, "due to the nature of the charges and the defendant's abilities, as well as the fact that all of his alleged conspirators are currently at large, we would like to suggest that he poses an extreme flight risk and thus should not be allowed pre-trial release on bail or any other conditions."

"Your honor, my client willingly turned himself in and agreed to stand trial. If he were a flight risk, he would already be gone. In fact, if he wished to flee right now, he could probably do it. He's no less secure out of jail than he would be in it. Incarcerating him is absolutely unnecessary."

"I'm forced to agree with the prosecution. Bail denied."

Scott sighed. He hadn't actually expected bail, but it would have been nice. He'd let himself get his hopes up for a second about being able to put his glasses on and go home, wait all this out in the relative comfort of the emergency dorms under the lawn or at least in a hotel room someplace. Nope. _Jail it is, then. Oh, well._

He snapped out of his rather pathetic daydream about a blank and lonely room that he could at least get into and out of at will to discover that Royal was upset about something. "All due respect, that's not nearly enough time! We have to prepare . . . almost anyone who could serve as a witness is on the run from the law—"

"Two weeks," the judge announced flatly. "I want this case in, out, and done."

There was a clack as Royal's jaw snapped shut. "Yes, sir," he said through his teeth.

"Dismissed."

Scott sank back down in his chair. When he heard Royal sit down next to him, he leaned over and whispered, "So this is bad, right?"

"Very," Royal hissed back. "But now's not the time to talk about it. Wait until Senator Creed leaves."

"Senator _Creed's _here?"

"With full entourage. Shush."

Scott obediently held his tongue as he heard shuffling and footsteps behind him, and the light, sharp tapping of a pair of high-heeled shoes. A lot of people were leaving the room . . . six at least, probably more, and one of them a woman. "Who else is here?" he asked.

"Mostly reporters. I guess the next guy up for arraignment doesn't sell as many papers as you do; they're all off to file their stories."

"We've got to go to trial in two weeks?"

"That's what he said. Either he really does want the case off his hands before there can be too much of a media circus, or he's got it in for us. You didn't hear that from me."

"Who'm I gonna tell?"

"Point. Well, if he thinks we can be run into the ground in two weeks, he's sorely mistaken. It's weird, though. Not strictly _illegal_, but definitely not classy. Very out of character for him. Some judges are jerks, but I'd thought Judge Webb would . . . well, never mind. We'll see it through." Royal squeezed his shoulder affectionately. "Don't go anywhere, Kid. The fun just got started."

* * *

"Charles?"

Professor Xavier turned toward the sound of Hank's voice, one finger raised carefully to his lips. He was outside the room that Hank had expected him to be in, the one where construction of the new Cerebro was underway. The door was ajar, and from inside raised voices echoed.

"The circuit cannot be left without a redundancy. It is going to blow out."

"Look! You're not even looking. You see that? It's a perfectly good overload relay so it doesn't _need _a redundancy. Waste of space and equipment."

"It is not going to hold."

"It _is_, and can we move on already? The prof's all like 'Get it done fast, matter of life and death,' and then you won't shut up about _circuit redundancies_."

"It's Charles who's going to die of an aneurysm when this thing explodes inside his head."

"It is _not going to explode!"_

There was a faint crackle of sparks.

"Okay, _that _exploded, but my _point_ is—"

Hank dared a peek around the edge of the door frame.

The contents of the room looked as though someone had disassembled twelve large computer towers and a half dozen erector sets and then started snapping them back together into a desk. In the middle of the chaos, flat on their backs, heads hidden under the central mass of the new construction, were two people: one, Magneto; the other, Forge.

_Amazing, isn't it? _asked Charles. _They've been at this for nearly two hours._

_And you've just left them alone? Magneto's a dangerous person, and Forge is . . ._

_ Oblivious, I know. _Charles smiled. _No respecter of persons. That's something that Magneto hasn't had to deal with in a long time: someone who isn't afraid of him._

Hank recognized one of Charles's oldest tactics, the way he'd won over so many of his X-Men: sending in one non-threatening representative to find common ground with a potential recruit or ally. Jean and Scott had been the favorites for this; they were tactful and sympathetic and persuasive. Forge had no social skills to speak of, and most conversations in which he had a part tended to end with everyone else involved wanting to hit him. If Hank had been called upon to pick a student to leave alone with Magneto, Forge would not have made the cut.

But he also couldn't think of anything more therapeutic for someone as angry, uptight, and self-absorbed as Magneto than a couple of hours of being unavoidably bullied by a nineteen-year-old mutant tech whiz.

_I created the X-Men to change people's minds, _Charles murmured. _On both sides._

_ You implied you were gambling everything on Scott's trial, _Hank accused gently, _but that's not it at all, is it?_

_ Only partially, _Xavier admitted. _I'm betting everything on the X-Men. And they're fighting on every available front. I have faith in them._

_ Well, I'm glad _you_ still do. There's been a bit of a fiasco downstairs, with Kitty and Gambit and Colossus . . ._

_ Yes, I heard. They're going back for her?_

_ Tonight, I think._

_ Good. _The professor's lips pressed together a little, worried. _I need to get back in there and try to get that thing working. If it were running by now I'd at least be able to know where Kitty is, and if she's hurt. I can't tell you how frustrating it is, not knowing._

_ Yes, you can. It's how the rest of us live. _Hank jerked his head in the direction of the work room. _Good luck with those two. If either one of them gives you any trouble, you know where I'll be._

* * *

Author's Notes:

You guys all know by now what _Le voilà_ means, right? You're so smart. :)


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

* * *

It was dark. And cold. And clear. Kurt could feel his fur standing up all over him, to keep the air a little farther away from his skin.

"You ready?" Rogue asked.

"Yeah." He took a glance around to get his bearings. "Remember, just stay here . . . _exactly_ here . . . okay?"

"Exactly right here. Ah know. And if you ain't back out here in ten minutes, Ah'm coming in after you, got it?"

"Fifteen?"

"_Ten._ The creepazoids are _watching_."

"All right, fine." He swallowed. "Here I go."

The bizarre other dimension through which Kurt passed when he teleported was as hot as the pits of hell, which right now was very welcome. When the split-second of flaming heat had passed, he found himself in the middle of Amanda's bedroom. He looked straight at the carpet, just in case she was, well, _in there _and in case she wasn't, um . . . this was why he didn't make a habit of porting unannounced into girls' bedrooms. He was blushing already, and nothing had even happened yet.

"Kurt? Oh, _Kurt!_"

Before he'd even worked up the nerve to raise his eyes, he heard a chair falling over and suddenly found himself with Amanda in his arms, her face buried in the curve of his shoulder. She was shaking, but without seeing her face he couldn't tell if it was because she was laughing, crying, or just scared.

All three, it turned out, when she raised her head. There were tears on her cheeks, but she was smiling, her breath coming in abrupt gasps. Kurt took her face in both hands and combed her long brown hair back behind her ears. "Are you okay?" he demanded. "Are you hurt?"

"No, I'm okay," she insisted. "Gaah, you're freezing." Despite the complaint, she hugged him tight again and pressed her cheek against his. "How did you get in here? They're still watching . . . there's a dark blue Taurus parked at the corner, and I've lived in this house my whole life and I know every car on this street and _nobody_ has a car like that . . . if they saw you . . ."

"Zey didn't," Kurt assured her. He pushed her gently out of his embrace so he could look her in the eye. "But ve've got to get you out of here."

She nodded. "I'm ready. Just give me two minutes." He turned away from him and dropped to her knees, fishing under her bed. She pulled out a bulging backpack and a pair of hiking boots.

"You're already packed?"

"M-hm." Amanda nodded eagerly as she took a seat on the side of her bed and started pulling on the boots. "I'm not stupid. I watch movies. I know how things work when you're a superhero's girlfriend. If I wear high heels, I'm going to end up being chased by something. If I dress light, I'm going to be stranded someplace very cold. And if I wear a skirt, then at some point I will be dangling from something very high with a crowd gathering below." She finished tying the boots and pulled on the bulky down jacket that was hanging on her bedpost. "So I'm prepared. Ready?"

"Mmm," said Kurt abstractly. He'd stopped paying attention at the words _a superhero's girlfriend._ After the brief jolt of worry that she'd started dating somebody else in the last two days and hadn't told him about it, the meaning had sunk in, leaving him dazed and thrilled and with the peculiar sensation that he could jump out a window and fly if he felt so inclined. Amanda thought she was a superhero's girlfriend. _His girlfriend thought he was a superhero._

Move over, Superman. Amanda Sefton thought he was a superhero.

"Kurt?"

_Snap out of it. _"Yeah. Vhat about . . . your parents?"

Amanda gestured to her desk. A plain white envelope addressed to _Mom and Dad _sat in the middle of it. "I left them a note. I explained everything. I hate to make them worry, but . . . I think they're going to be safer once I'm gone."

Kurt sighed. "Zey were right. I _am_ a bad influence."

"You'll bring me home safe, Kurt. I know you will." She pulled her backpack on over the jacket and faced him, chin up. "I'm ready."

"Okay." Kurt approached her, very carefully, and put his arms hesitantly around her waist. "You need to hang on to me as tight as you can, okay?"

Amanda wrapped her arms around his neck. "Okay."

"Don't let go."

"I won't."

"And don't be afraid."

"I'm not afraid."

Kurt teleported.

He teleported straight up as far as his range could take him, well out of visual range of any human eyes watching from the ground. For one breathless fraction of a second, he and Amanda hung weightless in the thin, freezing, star-strewn air half a mile over her house. Then the weight of their feet started to pull on them, and with nothing to hang onto but one another, they fell.

Only for a heartbeat. The next second, Rogue hit them hard from the side, her disproportionately strong arms clamping around their ribs and holding them motionless, legs still dangling into nothing.

"_Now_ I'm afraid," Amanda choked, her arms clamping like a vice around Kurt's neck.

"Don't worry. Ah gotcha," Rogue assured her. "Hi, Amanda."

"Hey, Rogue," Amanda answered, her voice sounding like she was trying to talk around a popcorn kernel lodged in the back of her throat.

"_Don't faint,_" Rogue ordered her sharply.

"I won't."

"Seriously, it is not fun hauling an unconscious person around . . ."

"I'm not going to faint!" Amanda insisted. "I might puke . . ."

"Oh, that's less fun. Please, faint. Help yourself."

Amanda took a second to gather herself. She kicked her feet a little, like a kid sitting at the edge of a pool, the toes of her boots bumping into Kurt's shins, getting used to the _nothingness _underneath . . . "Okay," she said at last. "No fainting, no puking. I just . . . have never teleported, or flown, or . . . anything . . . before. How do you guys do this?"

"It's easier for us," said Kurt. "Ve're used to it. You're doing just fine. You're doing great."

"Ready for the next thing?" Rogue asked. "Ah need you to let go of Kurt and get your arm around mah neck. It's hard carrying two people, so Ah need to get you two arranged or we ain't goin' nowhere."

"Can we land and do that?"

"Not really. We don't know where the feds are watching from, and we're kind of in a hurry."

"You can do it," Kurt assured her. "I'll help you." He wiggled a little, until one of his arms was free, and reached behind his neck to grab her wrist and guide it over Rogue's head. "See? Just like Twister."

"Just like Twister," Amanda repeated. "Right."

Once Amanda and Kurt were both situated so Rogue was carrying one of them with each arm and could see where she was going, she pivoted in the air and took off, slowly at first. "If you need to close your eyes, you go ahead, 'cuz we're gonna speed up."

"How fast are we talking?"

"Really fast."

She squeezed her eyes shut. "Okay."

Rogue stepped on the gas, as it were, and the three of them shot away through the cold black sky.

They were late. Kurt could tell by the urgent way Rogue flew. By the time she put on the brakes and eased them into a controlled drop over Finger Lakes State Park, the pickup was already underway.

It was a bigger affair than Kurt had expected. He and Rogue, for all their flying hither and yon, had only managed to contact about twenty people. The crowd gathered around the lake had to be at least twice that number, probably three times.

"Holy cow," Rogue breathed, surveying the assembly. "Where'd they all come from? Has the Professor been makin' calls, too?"

"Maybe," Kurt allowed. "But I sink vord just got around. Ze Professor doesn't know everyone . . . but I bet a lot of mutants know at least one other mutant."

"Is he gonna be able to carry everybody?" asked Rogue, gazing uncertainly down at the silver spheres parked among the people below.

Kurt felt Amanda's hand tighten its grip on his arm; she'd opened her eyes. "Oh, my _gosh_," she gasped. "Where are we _going_?"

"Outer space," Kurt told her. "Don't freak out."

"I'm not freaking out. Just keep me updated on what's going on, okay? I don't care how crazy it is. Tell me."

Rogue touched down on the grass. "Hold her," Kurt instructed quickly. Rogue obeyed, holding Amanda steady until Kurt came around to catch her. The first time he'd gone flying with Rogue, he'd hit the ground like a bag of wet sand. Amanda did about the same, pitching gracelessly forward into Kurt's waiting arms.

"I'm okay," Amanda assured him before he could say anything. "My knees just aren't working."

"I figured."

Rogue, whose body was equipped to handle G-forces and thus didn't need recovery time, was already scanning the crowd. "There he is," she hissed, half to herself.

Kurt raised his head and followed her gaze. Magneto, caped and intimidating but still bare-headed, was talking with the cluster of mutant refugees nearest to him. Perhaps sensing that someone several yards away was trying to lobotomize him with her eyeballs, he looked around and spotted Rogue. He excused himself from the conversation and floated through the crowd toward them.

"Showoff," Rogue muttered.

"You do ze same thing," Kurt pointed out.

"Who is he?" Amanda asked, her voice low.

"He's called Magneto," Kurt whispered back. "He's our ride."

"And if he recognizes you, we're screwed, so get behind Kurt and stay there," Rogue ordered. She flew out to meet him, keeping him from getting too close to Amanda.

"Where's the next drop?" she demanded.

"Does Charles teach anyone manners at that school, or just the useful skill of breaking things with their heads?" he inquired, glaring down at her with as much distaste as she was glaring up at him.

"Shut up and answer the question."

"MacCowell Park pavillion. That's in North Chicago. I assume you can locate Chicago."

"When?"

"Monday morning. Three a.m."

"And where's everybody else? Why aren't any of the X-Men down here with you?"

"It's a busy night. We're spread thin."

"_We_," Rogue hissed back, sarcastic. She grabbed the mark on the shoulder of her uniform. "'Till you're wearin' one of these, you ain't one of _us_."

Amanda, still leaning on Kurt, observed under her breath, "Whoever he is, Rogue hates his guts."

"She's scared of him," Kurt whispered back. "She gets mad when she's scared."

Magneto was handing Rogue a piece of paper; the next list of people to contact. Rogue stuffed it into her leg pocket and turned her back on him.

"Everyone," Magneto announced, raising his voice to be heard across the crowd. "We're leaving in one minute. Be in a sphere or you'll be left behind."

Kurt nudged Amanda onto her feet and carefully let her go, making sure she could stand under her own power. "Time for you to go."

"You, too," Rogue instructed. "You gotta go with her, Kurt."

"Vhat?" Kurt demanded. "I can't! I'm supposed to stay vith you!"

"Ah kin take care of myself for a couple days, and there's somethin' Ah gotta get done anyway. Amanda's gonna need you up there when Magneto figures out who an' what she is, so that's where you need to be. Get in the thing. Ah'll see you on Monday."

"But Rogue . . ."

"_Don't_," Rogue snapped. "Don't let this mess split you up from her. Stay with her."

That was when Kurt got it. "Rogue . . . what happened with Gambit?"

The sudden flash of hurt in her eyes let him know that he was onto something. But there was no time; spheres were clanging closed all around them. Rogue shoved him at the nearest one, and he dragged Amanda with him. They scrambled inside, assisted by a few of the people already there, and the shell snapped closed around them. One of the other passengers was phosphorescent, which was all that prevented them from being shut into total darkness.

The sphere jostled a little, and Kurt felt himself pressed down as it moved up, fast. He reached out with one hand for the curved, cold wall and with the other for Amanda.

"Is she gonna be okay?" Amanda asked.

"Yeah," Kurt assured her. "She's got . . ." He paused, leaning on Amanda for balance as he felt for his pocket. "Oh, _no_."

"What?"

"I've still got ze credit card and ze phone."

* * *

Gambit's mind ran over and over the plans and diagrams he'd been cramming all day. Professor Xavier had encouraged Gambit to widen his knowledge base by going to college, even though Gambit, with his Mark on his shoulder, considered himself to have all the education he'd ever need. But he'd done it to humor the old man, and to be with Rogue, and because he couldn't think of what he'd do with his time otherwise. He was well onto his way to a bachelor's in electrical engineering. And however this mess turned out, someday he'd have to thank the Professor for that—he wouldn't have been able to memorize all those wiring diagrams that fast without the months of practice reading them.

And now he had ten minutes to kill the power to the Solitude 4 base. And, exhausted and angry and grim, if he ended up killing anything else in the process, so much the better.

There was an access hatch at the edge of the base, leading down into the work tunnels that connected the place's underground generator with the buildings it needed to power. It was locked, but he could manage the lock with his eyes closed. There was an alarm, too, but a decent knowledge of electronics and a pocketknife settled that as well.

He slipped inside, silent, invisible, unnoticed, and followed the right twists and turns through the unlit and pipe-woven corridors to the control junction. There as a monitoring station there, small and stark, staffed by one man who was obviously more technician than soldier.

Gambit kept the knife out; it would simplify communication. The first indication the man had that this was going to be an unusual night was the feel of the cold, sharp little blade settled under his Adam's apple.

"Don' move," Gambit ordered. "Don' speak, don' think, and _don' _kick dat alarm switch. You wid me so far?"

He could feel the man shaking, his breath coming too fast. Gambit met the man's eyes in their reflection off one of the darkened tv screens; his own eyes gleamed and burned, flaring with his anger.

"Y'know dose mutants dey been tellin' you about? De mean, scary evil ones, wid unstoppable powers, out to kill us all? You lookin' at 'em." He pinched the man's collar and charged it, so it glowed painfully bright in the dark. "If for any reason I let go of dis shirt . . . if my hand gets bumped, or I get bored wid you . . . den your head is gonna get _blown off_. No joke, no bluff. It will blow off an' roll away, an' I will kick it outta my way when I leave here. You got me?"

He felt the man's head nod awkwardly in his grip.

"Good. Now let's get dis settled."

He flipped the knife closed and tucked it into his pocket, to free up his hand for the re-wiring that needed to be done.

* * *

Piotr waited in the woods well beyond the complex, just close enough to see the lights of the buildings, and tried to remember that emotional-detachment thing he'd gotten so very good at working for Magneto. He'd gotten so good at it that it almost felt like astral projection: taking the artist, the good son, the loving-older-brother side of himself out of any situation and leaving the human tank to deal with it alone. He'd had to. It was a survival tactic he'd developed to cope with desperate circumstances.

But in the few months he'd lived at the Institute, it had been different. He hadn't needed the detachment anymore. He'd gotten emotionally involved with everything—the team, the mission, the future that had opened up to him. And every day he'd found his attention lingering more and more on the bright little brown-haired girl called Kitty Pryde.

If anyone else had been taken by their enemies, he would have been upset. He would have been eager to save them, and worried for their welfare until that rescue came. But for Kitty to be the one lost and alone, for her future to be the one so uncertain . . . that fired every synapse in his brain and made his blood boil and his hands shake. He'd been lucky that he'd done no more than slug Gambit a few times when he'd heard the news.

The lights were the signal. Gambit had said. The lights would go out when he cut main power, and there would be a seven-minute window before the exterior electric fence and lights were fully charged, before the generator reset itself and warmed up enough to power them. He'd kill the backup generator, he'd said. Seven minutes to get in, find Kitty, and get out. Seven minutes for Gambit to draw fire and attention so he could get away unnoticed, and lie low until they were picked up.

Why weren't the lights turned off yet? They shone in the darkness, steady and immutable. Worry and suspicion circled in his head. Gambit would come through . . . probably. He might. Or he might turn. But if he did, it wouldn't be tonight. Not to the military and the oppressive law. Not at the cost of Kitty's life—for Gambit did love Kitty, who smiled when he called her _Minou_ and who was utterly without guile. Gambit would never betray Kitty . . . would he?

How impossible it was to trust a man who didn't trust himself.

_The lights must go off. Please, God, let them go off._

It was cold out here. Virginia was warmer than New York by a long way, and neither of them could compete with his hometown, but all the same he'd been out here long enough for the forlorn and persistent wind to raise goosebumps on the skin of his arms. He armored up; he ran more of a chance of being seen, covered in gleaming steel, but he was warmer and felt safer.

The lights went out.

Colossus ran. The ground shook under his feet, and bracken and smaller trees were pulverized in his path. Seven minutes to get in, find her, and get out. One shot at this. No room for error.

The powerless electric fence didn't even slow him down. He felt bullets from the guard tower pinging off his back. He'd been spotted, but with most of the base staff deployed to catch whoever had shut off the power and communications hampered by the outage, the mobilization wouldn't be more than he could handle. He turned a little to hit the outer wall with his shoulder instead of his face, spraying pieces of cinder block in every direction.

He didn't know where she was. Gambit had only been able to tell him that the lab spaces with the kind of power that containing Kitty would need were in the center of the bloc, ground floor. That was a lot of space, and possibilities, and uncertainty. He needed more information.

There were soldiers covering the building's main north-south hallway. They opened fire the second he came into view, the rounds hitting his face and chest with impressive precision and then ricocheting off in every direction. He heard someone call "Fall back!" as he came on without lessening his speed. They retreated, some even breaking and running off into other rooms and corridors where he'd be less likely to follow.

Colossus grabbed the first soldier he could reach, gripped him by the neck, and lifted straight up. "Where is Katherine Pryde?"

"I . . . I don't . . . who . . . "

"The mutant they are holding here. _Where is she?_" He tightened his grip a very little, changing the skin of the soldier's face to purple, then released it so the man could speak.

"B . . . B Lab. Right hand hallway."

Colossus opened his hand and dropped him. Then, because he'd been raised that way, he intoned a perfunctory "Thank you" before swerving right and taking off running again.

B Lab had large double doors that were clearly labeled. He shoved them off their hinges.

Kitty lay on an exam table in the middle of the room. She'd been stripped naked, and shaved bare. Monitoring nodes were adhered to the skin of her scull and across her chest. A clear plastic tube ran across her upper lip, feeding gray gas from a pressurized cylinder into her nose. A cuff around her upper arm was wired into a computer on a stand next to her head. And needles punctured the inside of each of her elbows, feeding into collection bags of bright red blood that hung on either side of the bed frame. And every inch of her skin was pale and blue-gray, the color so unnatural that for the longest and most horrific second of his life Colossus was sure that she was dead.

Then he saw her chest move, rising barely an inch and subsiding again. And the beeping of the computer registered in his mind: it was reporting a heartbeat. She wasn't gone.

"Kitty! Kitty, wake up!" He was moving even before he spoke, ripping the nodes off of her skin. He was rougher than he needed to be, hoping that the harmless pain of it would bring her around, but she didn't react. The breathing tube came off next, then the monitor cuff—the computer registered a flatline and wailed in response. The needles he was more careful with. He had no medical training beyond basic first aid and had never handled needles before. If she hadn't felt the nodes, then she wouldn't feel these, but he didn't want to tear holes in her skin. He drew out one, then the other, tossing them contemptuously to the floor as soon as they were out of her body.

He checked his watch. Two minutes to go. But naked as she was, the cold breeze outside could kill her. Colossus cast about for something to keep her warm and spotted a steel cabinet in the corner. He wrenched it open, leaving the flimsy frame twisted to pieces, and grabbed out the thin gray blanket he found on the bottom shelf. He shook it open and laid it over Kitty. He couldn't avoid _looking at_ her . . . there was no time to be spared for that kind of propriety . . . but he did his best to avoid _noticing _those parts of her that he'd never seen before as he wrapped it tight around her and lifted her from the table. It might have must been that he was armored up, but she felt unusually light and fragile.

Less than a minute. Time to get out of here. With Kitty clutched close against his chest, he charged out of the lab and headed for the first green glow of an emergency exit sign. This certainly qualified as an emergency.

Once outside, he spared only a second to glance up at the stars and take bearings. The woods around Solitude 4 were thick; if he mistook the direction of the rendezvous, the Blackbird would never find him. Fortunately, the North Star was to his right, where it needed to be, and the lights and chaos were behind him. He ran, keeping to the darkest shadows to prevent any gleam of light from catching his armor and drawing attention to him.

There was the fence again. He kicked a hole in it and was out.

The breeze had picked up. It was colder than it had been, just a few minutes before. He felt Kitty shudder feebly in his arms. He didn't dare to hold her tighter—armored up, he could easily break a bone by accident, and holding her close to a metal surface would only make her colder. So he ran, flinching on her behalf, a mile and a quarter without pause until he reached the gap in the trees that was to be their rendezvous.

He lowered himself to the ground, taking Kitty with him, and sloughed off his armor. "Kitty? _Katya_, we've got you out. You're going to be all right. Can you hear me? Kitty, please, for the love of all that is holy, please wake up!"

* * *

Gambit could hear the generator whine as it struggled to reboot. He had two minutes before every light and alarm and defense in the place came blazing back to life. Time to go, and to hope that Piotr had done his job and that Storm would be where she needed to be.

He laid his hand flat on the control panel in front of him and charged it. It was hard to manage two different levels of charge, one in each hand, and the technician's collar glowed brighter as he loaded more power into it than he'd intended. The man could obviously feel or see the difference; he made a strangled, panicked noise and started to shake.

_I could just pull my hand away. _There was no one there to stop him, and no X-Man would ever have to know. He'd done it before. And this cruel, stupid creature had been sitting here for hours, _knowing _that a young woman was being held prisoner upstairs, not caring enough to lift a finger to help her, or even to absent himself from the place in protest. Legitimate military target. Revenge for Katherine Pryde. He could just take his hand away . . . and thanks to his precious telepathic immunity, Professor Xavier would never know.

But he decided not to. For now.

_If you're gonna kill someone, Remy, let it be the big fish. Let it be Senator Creed, who gave the orders. Don't waste it on this thing. He doesn't deserve to be killed by you._

He drew the charge out of the man's shirt collar and let it rush into the computer panel. "I'd run if I was you," he advised, before suiting action to the word.

He was back on ground level and pelting toward the fence when the explosion blew. Flaming shrapnel rained down around him, and the air filled with the roar of hungry fires seeking oxygen. The darkness was lit up behind him, and bullets started zinging around his head. He veered sideways, away into the dark underneath the dead searchlights of a guard tower.

He'd reached the fence. He didn't care now whether it was charged or not; he pulled a hand of cards from his pocket and flung them out in front of him. They exploded as they hit the wire, striking back at him with blasts of hot, percussive air against his body, and he shot through the hole they'd made before the flames had even died away. It wasn't the most subtle way of making an exit, but subtlety wasn't the goal. The more people and armament he had chasing him, the less there would be chasing Piotr and Kitty.

A bullet caught the edge of his ear. He swore freely but didn't slacken his pace. He had to be fast enough or they were all as good as dead . . .

They were falling behind. Running through thick woods in the pitch black was hard enough with mutant eyes; it had to be nearly impossible for the soldiers, burdened with gear and half blind. But they'd have heat seekers on him in a matter of seconds . . .

The trees thinned, and engines roared. There it was: the X-Jet, swooping down like a raven, a plane-shaped patch of starless sky. It didn't engage the VTOL engines, but the bottom hatch opened. Gambit grabbed out his staff as he ran, extended it, and vaulted. The jump would probably have won him an Olympic medal. The Blackbird scooped him up at the apex of his leap; he hit the back wall of the cabin, hard, and dropped to the floor in a tangle. The adamantium staff went skittering away under a bench.

"Got you," Storm announced, and he felt himself pressed into the floor as the Bird accelerated upwards.

* * *

Phasing was like diving into deep water with no guarantee you could come up again. Kitty had no idea how long she'd been under. Everything was blackness and cold . . . desperate, immobilizing, bone-crunching cold. It burned, and she hated it, trying to surrender herself back into the dark. She didn't know if it was unconsciousness or death, and she didn't care. There'd been no feeling there, and that was better.

But there were sounds. Someone was calling for her.

"Kitty, please, if you can hear me, please wake up . . . we've rescued you, Kitty, don't let it be for nothing . . . please, I can't bear it, _please _wake up . . ."

Peter was somewhere near. And he was upset. That alone was enough to drag her back into consciousness . . . poor Peter, worried . . .

She felt like someone had covered her in piles of the lead vests they used for taking x-rays at the dentist. Every inch of her felt heavy, even her fingers and her eyelids and the stomach muscles she used to breathe. It would be so much easier to lie still, unresisting, but she hated to know that Peter was upset. So she pushed the lead weight up off her stomach as far as she could, to get just enough air to exhale a single audible word. "_Peter_ . . ."

She heard an exclamation, some rolling Russian word that was so sudden and loud and near at hand that she would have jumped if she'd had any strength to jump with. Then strong arms gathered her up, and she felt lips being pressed firmly and urgently to her forehead.

Her whole body lit up with warmth. It felt like sitting too close to the fireplace right after coming inside out of the cold, or like the last two minutes of any really heart-stoppingly good romantic movie. All of her concern and attention was abruptly focused on this one crucial fact, one she had to get across to him immediately or die in the process. She couldn't open her eyes, but she could coax another breath out between her lips. "_You kissed me . . ._"

The strong arms relaxed around her, letting her sag back down toward unconsciousness, and a broad hand brushed soothingly across her forehead and down her cheek. "Sssssh. Never mind. It's all right. Just forget it. Don't worry. You're safe. I'm sorry . . . never mind about it."

Kitty Pryde did not want to never mind about it. What she wanted was for the wonderful warmth to continue, to be held close and safe, to hear her name spoken by his voice over and over again. If she'd been strong enough, alert enough, to care, this overwhelming need would have embarrassed her beyond measure, but she just didn't have the resources to be embarrassed right now. All she had was the strength for one more breath with words in it. "_Do it again._"

For a long time, nothing happened, leaving Kitty afraid that she'd wasted her last breath on words he hadn't even heard. Then she felt his warm breath on her face, and his kiss pressing against her cheek, just under her eye. Even after he drew back, she could feel the imprint of his lips, and wondered if it was glowing.

A long, breathless moment, and the caress came again, just on the curve of her jaw. Then another, light and almost playful, on her chin . . . another on her temple, firm and slow . . . another that was barely more than a breath upon her quivering eyelid. Each kiss came so long after the last that Kitty kept worrying that he'd stopped, but he never did. There always seemed to be some spot, the bridge of her nose or the softness of her cheek, that still needed attention. But he never kissed her mouth—never asked her to kiss him back. And Kitty, as weak and helpless as her newborn namesake, could do nothing but lie passive in his arms and bask in the astonishing feeling of being suddenly and hopelessly and absolutely _loved._

Then there was a howl of jet engines, and Piotr raised his face away from her, and Kitty tried to reach for him and blacked out.

* * *

Author's Notes:

These last scenes with Kitty and Piotr came to me on a hot, humid, rainy spring night in a tiny apartment in Pusan, South Korea. I'd been hanging in there for about two months with no one to talk to, and the enforced silence finally just kind of exploded in my head. Very rarely have I had story ideas sprung fully formed into my mind like Athena from the head of Zeus, but that's totally what happened. And I got to curl up in bed and listen to the rain and dream about being loved. It was a good night. :)


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18

* * *

The sphere hissed as it slid open, the air pressure inside it dissipating into the less pressurized space of the Avalon landing bay. All around them, spheres were opening, mutant refugees clambering slowly out, passing backpacks and suitcases to one another and gazing around in awe and trepidation at the huge metal space.

The X-Men and the Brotherhood were there waiting. Kurt did a quick head count: Professor Xavier, was there, but there were no other teachers, no senior team members, no Amara. Magneto'd been right: they were spread pretty thin.

"Welcome to Avalon," Magneto's voice rang out. "You are safe here."

Bobby stepped forward. He was holding a clipboard and looked nervous. "Hey, um . . . hi, everybody. Welcome, I guess. Um . . . listen, there're rooms upstairs for everyone, so you can take your stuff up, but as you're going out we need to get kind of a sense of who-all is here. We're all kind of pitching in to keep things running while we wait out the action going down planet-side, so if anybody has powers or skills that would be useful, um, come by and let me know. Especially anybody who's good with electronics or computers, things like that, or anybody with medical training, or anybody whose powers generate _power_, like electricity or heat. Just come talk to me. My name's Bobby . . . Iceman."

Kurt scrambled out onto the floor and reached up to help Amanda down. Ray jogged over to help the other passengers from their sphere. "Crawler, what're you doing up here, man? Aren't you supposed to be with Rogue?"

"Change of plans," Kurt told him. "So now Bobby's in charge?"

"Beast got a whole system worked out. Chore rotation. He just left instructions for us, 'cause he needed to go help rescue Kitty."

"Why? Where's Kitty?"

"Yo, Amanda!" The sphere rattled; all three of them looked up to see Toad perched on top of it, fishing absently in his ear with a pinky finger. "Long time no see."

Amanda gave him an apologetic smile. "Not long enough, Toad. Sorry."

"Ouch. That's cold."

"You trashed my parents' house, remember?"

"Water under the bridge, right? I mean, you're up here, so I guess we all gotta be friends again. It ain't like _you're _a mutant."

Too late, Kurt remembered it was better to shut Toad up the second he started talking. He made a futile grab at Toad, who was still oblivious to the fact that he'd done anything wrong, but the words were out . . . and Magneto had heard them. Kurt saw his shadow fall across the side of the sphere.

He whipped around, pulling Amanda behind him. Ray stuck close, without any intention of leaving his teammate stuck between a villain and a hard place.

Magneto's voice was as cold as anything Bobby could conjure, but his gray eyes burned. "You brought one of _them _here."

"She's not 'one of _them'_," Kurt snapped back. "She's _my girlfriend_. And she needed help. The government vas vatching her. She was in danger for protecting us."

"That is not our concern."

"It's _my_ concern!"

"Hardly mine." Magneto's eyes flicked to Amanda. Behind them, the sphere creaked. Two rings wrenched out of it and locked around her wrists, then pulled straight down. Amanda gave a startled little shriek as they wrenched her off balance and pinned her to the floor.

Kurt dropped with her and teleported, pulling the pair of them to a spot six inches away from where they'd been and leaving the cuffs behind. He was back on his feet in a second, and _mad._ And Kurt didn't get mad, usually. "Don't you touch her."

"She can't go back and she can't be allowed to wander free in here. I assumed you'd prefer her being imprisoned to my settling the issue more _directly. _This is my station, and I will protect it, whether you like it or not. You should not have brought her here." He shook his head, his lips pursed together in disgust and contempt. "You foolish, helpless, ignorant little children. First you can't see the war, and then you can't see the enemy."

"I can see ze enemy just fine," Kurt hissed back through clenched teeth. He was in Magneto's face now . . . shorter by a lot, but reckless and determined and gutsy. "Amanda's one of us. She's a friend of ze X-Men, and she just left her home and her family to keep from betraying us. Ve owe her our help. And if you don't think you owe her, then remember zat you owe me. You see this?" He extended his arm and grabbed at a handful of thick blue fur. "Zis is vhat _you_ did to me. _Your_ tests. Before I was a year old. It's because of _you_ I never spent one day as a normal kid before I came to the Institute and met Professor Xavier!"

"Don't blame me for the way your X gene has manifested. Your mutation is your own problem."

"My mutation lets me teleport, and that hit when I vas thirteen just like anybody else's. Zis — the vay I look—vas your doing. It might never have happened if you hadn't decided to run tests on a kidnapped baby. So you owe me a favor, and I'm cashing it in."

"And if I refuse?"

"You refuse," Ray cut in, "and you mess with all of us. You want to kill one human, go ahead . . . you'll just have to kill half a dozen mutants to get to her. Right, guys?"

"Dang straight," Bobby called. He, Roberto, Sam and Jamie had formed a ring around Magneto. All of them together were a joke next to the Omega, but it still filled Kurt with a flush of pride to see his teammates standing with him.

"How quickly you forget." Professor Xavier maneuvered his chair through the crowd of people who were watching with trepidation from what looked like a safe distance. "Have you forgotten after so few years, Eric, that your Magda was human, too?"

Kurt heard a quick intake of startled breath. His head, along with everyone else's, whipped around to locate it.

It had come from Pietro. He recoiled a little from the sudden focusing of everyone's attention on him, but he spoke straight to Kurt. "My mom," he explained. "Our mom."

Kurt had never given the slightest thought to Pietro's mom. He'd assumed he had one, the same way pretty much everybody did. But suddenly the resemblance between Magneto and Quicksilver, the fair coloring and aristocratic noses and chins, was glaringly obvious, while Wanda's dark brown hair and large eyes were blatantly incongruous. Who did Wanda resemble, then? There was some other player in this game, a brunette human woman who had given birth to the twins and then disappeared into history, that Professor Xavier was invoking now.

"Amanda is no more and no less than she was," Xavier pressed on. "A human, but the mother and grandmother of mutants yet unborn. Will you kill her just because Nightcrawler loves her?"

"Let her stay, Father," Wanda requested. Her voice shook, and the glittering of one of her bracelets betrayed that her hands were shaking too, but her tone was firm. "It doesn't matter. Just let her stay."

It was Wanda that tipped the scale. Everyone watching could see it. Magneto's eyes darted from his daughter to Xavier, Xavier to Amanda, from Amanda back to Kurt. "Keep her, then," he ordered, and turned and left the room.

* * *

The Blackbird had to fly a wide, high loop, every stealth feature fired up, to evade pursuit before swinging back to pick up Shadowcat and Colossus. Gambit used the precious few seconds to stumble to the aircraft lavatory and be sick.

"Are you all right?" Hank demanded.

"Yeah," Gambit insisted, wiping his mouth with the shoulder of his coat. "Ran too hard. I lost a couple seconds inside an' had t'make 'em up."

"And you're bleeding."

Gambit reached up and touched his ear. His fingers came away slimed with blood. "Bullet nicked me. Ain't bad." Leaning heavily on the sink, he looked up at his reflection in her mirror. There was white froth at the corners of his mouth, and the side of his head that wasn't black and blue from Colossus's fist was red from the still-bleeding wound in his ear. There were purple marks under his eyes.

The last time he'd seen his reflection looking this awful, Julian Boudreaux had been rapidly cooling on the billiard table in his family's house.

Hank put a huge, solid, comforting hand on his back. "You done good, Gambit. Take it easy. We're proud of you."

"Yeah," Gambit sighed. "Fo' now."

The Blackbird's engines changed note as it switched from horizontal flight to vertical. Gambit spat the last of the vomit from his mouth into the sink and stood up. "C'mon. Let's get our girl."

The second that the landing rap touched the earth, Piotr was on it, The slender, blue-gray body in his arms. She wasn't shivering.

The plane was already up and gone as Piotr laid her on the exam table. Hank put a hand on her forehead. "Sweet mother of Moses, she's freezing. Piotr, sit down and strip your shirt. We've got to get her warmed up."

Remy allowed only a second for Colossus to hesitate in mortification. "Lose de shirt, genius! I'd do it for her if I could, but . . ."

"I know you would," Piotr snarled, pulling the hem of his uniform shirt over his head. He sat on the floor with his back against the side of the plane and accepted Kitty's limp form onto his lap, her shoulders leaning back against his chest. Remy tossed the blanket over them both and grabbed a couple more from stowage.

Hank felt for Kitty's pulse. "I can barely feel anything," he muttered. "Gambit, sphygmomamometer."

"Here!" Gambit pitched it across the plane. "Stethoscope?"

"Yes." Hank's large, furry blue hands were quick with experience and urgency that stayed on the controlled side of panic. There was a moment of intense, breathless silence as he watched the gauge. "Oh, my goodness."

"What?" Piotr demanded.

"Her blood pressure's so low I'm impressed her heart's still beating." He yanked the stethoscope from his ears and let it drop around his neck.

"When I found her, they were draining her blood from both arms," said Piotr, who seemed to be trying to arrange his arms so he could hold Kitty without actually touching her.

"Juicing her. With the right science, Kitty's DNA is potentially . . . well, it's the making of unstoppable armies. It's got to be worth more than the blood of Christ."

The com system flickered online, and Magneto's bass voice projected through it. "Blackbird, what is your status? Are you ready for pickup?"

"Not yet, Avalon," Storm answered. "We've got a problem."

"Magneto, do you have any blood packs up there in your medical bay?" Hank asked.

"No. There's saline."

"Not going to be nearly good enough. Kitty needs a blood transfusion, _now_."

"What's her blood type?" Gambit demanded. "Somebody up dere's gotta be a match."

Storm checked the computer. "B negative. Rare. O negative would work."

"No, it wouldn't, and neither would B negative," Hank snapped. "We've never tried a mutant-to-mutant blood transfusion. The X gene alters so much of the body so radically there's no telling what would happen if we put another mutant's blood in her, even someone with a minor power. Ten to one it would kill her."

"Is going without a transfusion more or less likely to kill her?" Magneto asked rhetorically from the comm.

"Turn around," Gambit ordered. "Drop me at a hospital an' swing back in twenty minutes."

"That's a cold job on a staffed building, Gambit," Storm shot at him. "And you can barely stand up!"

"I can do it."

"I'm B negative."

"We can't just land the Blackbird on top of a hospital," said Hank. "It's three times the size of a helicopter pad. Even if we could fit, and were in stealth mode, somebody will notice—and if they're trying to land a medivac chopper, we could end up killing somebody. We'll cause chaos, at best." He turned back to Piotr. "Colossus, watch her breathing. Tell me if she stops."

"Oh, believe me . . . I will tell you."

"I'm B negative."

"If we cannot risk a theft, we should take her back to Avalon and hope for the best," said Storm. "She may pull through."

"She'd have a lot better chance of pulling through if we hadn't had to leave her outside for fifteen minutes in the mountains in March at midnight."

"What are you, deaf? _I'm B Negative!_"

There was one second of silence.

"You want to see my Red Cross card?" said an annoyed girl's voice.

"Is that _Amanda_?" Gambit asked.

"Blackbird, we have a donor," Magneto announced. "Get up here."

"On our way. We will need a pickup in ten minutes."

"Understood."

Storm cut the comm and accelerated the plane.

* * *

Amanda Sefton, fully equipped with jeans, boots, warm jacket, and a little square of heavyweight paper with her name and blood type on it, faced off against the most powerful mutant super villain in the history of the world. And came very close to winning the glaring competition.

"So are we gonna stand here, or are we gonna save Kitty?" Amanda asked at last. She was planted in the doorway of the conference room, arms folded in belligerence, Kurt behind her with a hand on her shoulder.

"You don't have to do zis," Kurt insisted to her. "You don't have to prove anything."

"Kitty's _my _friend, too," she rebutted.

"Get downstairs to the medical lab," Magneto ordered Amanda. "Get rid of that coat, lie down on an exam table and prop up your feet. I'll be back with the plane."

Amanda nodded. "Cool. Come on, Kurt." She grabbed his arm and pulled him into the corridor.

"Vhere are you going?" Kurt demanded, allowing himself to be dragged more than keeping up with her. "You don't even know vhere ze medical bay is!"

"So show me!"

He dug his heels in and pulled her to a stop. "You're thinking like a human," he told her gently. "You're in Mutantville now."

There was a sudden, obscuring flume of thick gray smoke and a flash of heat. She stumbled and choked, waving a hand in front of her face to clear the air.

"Shortcut," said Kurt. "Medical bay."

"Wow," said Amanda, looking around at the gleaming steel facility. "That's so weird. Which way's north now?"

"We're on an asteroid. Zhere isn't any north. But we did a quarter-turn . . ." Kurt gestured with his body. "Like zis."

This information helped to dispel a little of her disorientation. "Okay." She shrugged out of her backpack and her coat. "Help me find a pillow or something for my feet."

"Okay." Kurt turned to look for a pillow, then turned back. "Amanda?"

"Yeah?"

"You're amazing."

Amanda stopped in her tracks, an embarrassed smile spreading over her face. Kurt was looking at her as though she was the one with super powers, instead of him.

"Ready for anything," she joked, blushing. "Kurt?"

"Yeah?"

"You know I love your fur, right? I love it, and I love _you_, and it might be selfish, but . . . if I could change what Magneto did to you, I don't think I would. I wouldn't want to risk you turning out to be anybody but exactly who you are."

Kurt smiled . . . one of his slow, hesitant smiles that she loved watching. "Thanks."

Amanda forgot what they were doing for a second. Then, with the unpleasant jerk of someone who just realized they fell asleep again after turning off the alarm, she snapped back to the task at hand and resumed her search for a pillow.

By the time Magneto returned, Amanda was ready to rock and roll, with her feet up, her shirt sleeves rolled above her elbows, and her toes waving absently in the air. Magneto was carrying Kitty, wrapped in a rough beige blanket, her pale, naked head lolling against his shoulder. He was being followed by most of Kurt's house mates, Lance Alvers and a couple of his friends, and some people she didn't recognize.

He laid Kitty on the exam bed next to the one Amanda had claimed, then turned around with apocalyptic thunder in his bone-shaking bass voice. "OUT!"

Hank McCoy . . . whom she'd seen only a few times since he'd grown fur and quit teaching at Bayville High, but who had been one of her favorite teachers . . . had a more effective method of crowd control. "Colossus, clear the room, please."

Colossus manhandled everybody but Kurt out the door in record time.

"Him, too," Magneto snapped, jerking his head at Kurt and fishing two pre-packaged needles from a drawer.

"Waste of energy," Colossus observed, his level, measured tone daring Magneto to contradict him. Giving Jamie once last, extremely decisive shove, he closed the door of the medlab behind himself, leaving only Magneto, Hank, Kurt, and the two girls.

Magneto had torn open the needle packages, and both instruments were parked in the air next to his head. He attached one to a length of clear plastic tubing while Hank hooked Kitty up to a heart monitor.

Amanda had been faithfully donating blood since her sixteenth birthday, but she didn't have much idea of what usually happened to her blood after she donated it. She had a vague idea of it being spun into components, maybe cleaned or pasteurized somehow, but the only pieces of equipment she could see emerging were the plastic tubing and the two needles.

"So . . . we're doing this fast and dirty, huh?" she asked, trying to stay casual. She kept waving her toes, for good measure. Kurt slipped his hand into hers and held on.

"No time for anything else," said Hank. "Amanda, when was the last time you donated?"

Amanda squeezed her eyes shut, blocking out the overload of stimuli going on around her. "It was right after my first midterm for English . . . so two and a half, maybe three weeks ago?"

"She's not eligible to donate again yet," Hank said to Magneto.

"We're not playing by the rules," Magneto answered.

One of the needles dropped, angled itself properly, and stabbed into her arm. Amanda gasped at the sudden pain, but didn't let any muscles tense up except the ones in her left hand. Kurt squeezed back.

Magneto waited until the tubing filled with dark red blood, and a few drops of it had seeped from the other needle and fallen to the floor. Confident there were no air bubbles in the improvised rig, he directed it into a faint blue vein line in Kitty's arm. She didn't even twitch. Amanda squeezed her right hand into a fist to force blood through the tube. Her artery to Kitty's vein—one interconnected circulatory system.

"Good," Hank murmured. "Good, good. Amanda, tell us if you start feeling woozy. You're doing great."

"Yeah, all my phlebotomists say I'm a good bleeder," Amanda joked. "I fully expect a bottle of juice and a cookie, I hope you guys know."

"You vill be showered vith cookies, I promise," Kurt assured her.

Amanda let her head settle back against the bed and focused on pumping her fist.

"It's helping," Hank announced after a few minutes. "Her bp's up, color's better . . . getting some warmth back in her fingers and toes."

Amanda smiled and allowed herself a sigh of relief. Then she wished she hadn't. "Mr. McCoy?"

"Yes, Amanda?"

"I think I'm feeling woozy." She took a tighter grip on Kurt's hand. "Really woozy."

"Okay," said Hank. "Kurt, better go get her that juice."

Kurt was gone in an eyeblink.

Hank grabbed another pillow from the cabinet that Amanda had left open and used it to elevate her legs even further. "Does that help?"

"A little," said Amanda, wanting to be positive. The feeling that she'd just stepped off a merry-go-round—disoriented, unbalanced, and a little nauseous—did recede noticeably. But only for a second. All too soon, it was back, and worse.

"She's probably given well over what she's used to," said Hank, partially to himself and partially to Magneto. "We should get that thing out."

"Shadowcat's blood pressure is still dangerously low," Magneto snapped back.

"It'll have to do. We don't need both of them in critical."

"I'm fine," Amanda insisted. She could hear her voice slurring. "Just kinda . . . spinny and . . ."

"Take the needle out, _now_!"

"Shadowcat is the priority."

"No, she isn't!"

"It's okay . . ." said Amanda. At least, she was moderately sure she said something like it. Her ears were ringing, and she was finding it hard to think in a straight line.

When her brain cleared, she found that her neck had gone slack and her head had fallen back and rolled sideways. Kurt was back, crouched next to her and slapping her cheek. "Amanda, vake up. You okay? Talk to me!"

"You blacked out. You scared me to death! How many fingers?"

"Two," guessed Amanda, not bothering to look at the blue-furred hand he was holding in front of her face. With hands like his, it wasn't like he had many options.

"Black spots? Nausea? Anysing?"

At her other side, Mr. McCoy pressed a piece of cotton wool against the wound at the bend of her elbow and lifted her arm above her head. "There we go. If you've got any blood left, we want to keep it inside."

She wobbled her head up to get a look at the room. "Where's purple cape guy?"

"Gone," Kurt told her. "He left. Don't worry. You're safe."

"Duh," said Amanda, with more vehemence than eloquence. "It's just a little blood. People black out doing this all the time. He wasn't gonna let anything serious happen to me."

Mr. McCoy and Kurt exchanged a look, one neither subtle nor comfortable.

"Kurt, makes sure she drinks all of that. Amanda, can you keep this arm up here for a couple of minutes? Just like that. Keep pressure on it. Good girl. I'm going to get Kitty on a saline drip."

"Is she gonna be okay?" Amanda asked, craning her over-wobbly head to try to see Kitty.

"As far as I can see, there's no reason she shouldn't live to fight another day. You saved her life, Amanda Sefton. Good work."

Amanda smiled. "I'm a superhero, too."

Kurt smiled at her. "Absolutely."

The ground shook. Amanda, forgetting for a second that she was supposed to be keeping her arm above her head, grabbed onto Kurt. "What was that?"

"Lance getting nervous." Hank turned to the door and yelled, "SHE'S OKAY!"

Amanda gulped down a deep breath and looked Kurt firmly in the eye. "I am gonna need some time to get adjusted to Mutantville," she announced, her voice deliberately calm.

Kurt returned her gaze for a minute, the muscles around his lips tensing a little under the skin. Then he made a bizarre, startling snorting noise through his nose, gave up, and started to laugh.

Amanda felt herself start to shake, then to giggle. She let her forehead rest against his and laughed and laughed.

From outside the medlab, she heard an angry voice snarl "_Pour l'amour du ciel!_"

"He's gonna start blowing things up," Mr. McCoy sighed. "Let him in, Colossus. That ear needs cleaning anyway."

The door opened just enough to let Gambit slither in. The side of his head was covered in blood, making him look like a distracted axe murderer. He tossed a greeting of "Hey, Brown Eyes," at Amanda on his way to Kitty's bedside. "She's good?" he demanded.

"Gonna be fine," Hank assured him.

"Blood pressure comin' up?"

"Yes."

"She gonna be . . . I dunno . . . brain-damaged, or . . ."

"Not likely. Piotr said she was conscious and coherent for a few minutes before we picked them up."

"An' fingers an' toes? Frostbite?"

"It wasn't even below freezing. Sit _down." _Hank put one huge hand on Gambit's shoulder and shoved him down onto the next exam bed. "Head wounds bleed a lot, so it's not as bad as it looks, but you are a mess."

"She's . . ."

"She's _all right._ Can you calm down?"

Gambit sighed, closed his eyes, and let himself fall sideways onto the bed, bad ear up. "She dies an' everyt'in' I have dies wid her."

"She's not going to die. Now stop being dramatic and find some alcohol wipes to clean your face off with. Gambit?"

He was already asleep.

* * *

Author's Notes:

I'm uploading this from someone else's computer . . . so I blame typos and other errors on the fact that this keyboard and I are not getting along so good.


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter 19

* * *

Rogue could feel the sunrise sneaking up behind her. Flying west, she followed the long black shadows that even short obstacles were casting on the ground below. By her best guess, she was somewhere over Ohio. Fields stretched out below her as far as she could see, stripes of black earth and white snow, speckled with stands of trees and the occasional lake.

This was peaceful. Flying alone in the silence, her head bowed into the wind, the roar of the air muting her thoughts . . . it was blessed relief from the stress and the uncertainty. When she met up with Kurt again, she'd have to say it all out loud, explain what had happened and admit that she didn't know what to do. But there were days before she'd had to face that. And in the meantime, she had an errand to run.

_I got a call I need to make, too. Old friend. Prob'ly well outta harm's way, but I won't sleep easy 'till I know for sure._

Rogue knew who he'd meant. Maybe he'd made that call, and maybe he hadn't, but she owed it to him to check. Because he, in turn, owed a lot to a woman in New Orleans. And until Rogue and Remy parted ways for good, his debts were still as sacred to her as her own.

A different roar, higher-pitched and far away, hit her ears. Rogue did a barrel roll to get a good look around herself and saw two streaks of white in the distance to the northeast. Contrails. There were two jets up here with her.

No problem. She'd probably strayed too close to an Air Force base, and the pilots were up here running drills. She veered south, giving them plenty of space.

The roar didn't fade. It got louder. She checked over her shoulder . . . a move she didn't like doing at high speed because it got her hair in her face. The contrails had changed direction, and were converging on her.

Aw, dang. They had to have picked her up as a bogey. Well, that was no problem; she knew how to disappear off radar. She let air spill upward around her body, dropping herself closer to the ground. Flying low made it more likely that she'd be spotted by someone on the ground, but this early in the morning there wouldn't be that many people awake anyway.

Just for good measure, she cut her speed down to almost nothing. Better just to let them pass her and go about their business. In seconds, the two planes . . . FA-18 Hornets . . . went screaming over her head and off into the distance. Rogue picked up speed again and angled herself back up to a good cruising height. Crisis averted.

For ten minutes. Until she heard the roar again. She did another over-the-shoulder check. Two planes.

"_Dang _it," Rogue snarled to herself, her words sucked away by the wind. They'd doubled back to see if she . . . whatever they thought she was . . . would break cover. Which she had. If they were that curious, she'd have to pull something a little fancier to shake them. _Dang it. _This wasn't going to be any fun.

She pressed forward into the wind, increasing her speed, and scanned the ground below her. The Hornets behind her were gaining ground, but she couldn't straight-line outrun them. Even if she did have the speed, breaking the sound barrier would draw the attention of every man, woman, and child for miles.

She twisted her body, letting the air stream catch under her left shoulder to turn her trajectory down and to the right. She couldn't run, but she could outmaneuver any fixed-wing craft in her sleep. She twisted harder: tighter turn, deeper dive, stress on her spine and her shoulders. On the ground below, she spotted what she was looking for: a decent-sized lake on which the ice had begun to break up.

She hit the water like a bullet, plowing straight down into the blackness and letting the density of it drag her to a stop. She could feel the cold, but abstractly, her invulnerability protecting her from the pain she knew was trying to press through her skin. No radar or visual sweep could possibly spot her down here.

Her body's natural buoyancy pulled her up towards the surface. She let her head break through into the air when she couldn't stay down anymore, and treaded water while she caught her breath and checked the sky. The two contrails sliced across it like tire tracks. She slicked her hair back off her face and brushed water from her eyes, waiting. Best to let them get well out of range; cat and mouse got old fast.

She gave them a good couple of minutes. When she was absolutely sure there was calm, pristine early-morning silence in every direction, she pulled herself up out of the lake and spun the water out of her clothes. Problem solved. Hair a mess, backpack soaked, but problem solved.

She veered south. The alternate route would leave her landmark-free for a while, but if worst came to worst she'd just hit the Gulf of Mexico and follow the coast. Probably easier that way, anyway . . . she was just favoring the west-to-the-Mississippi route because she'd done it before. She gained altitude and added speed, getting out of the Hornets' territory as fast as she reasonably could.

She had clear skies for half an hour. Then a Hornet cut so close across her flight path its wing tip practically clipped her nose.

Rogue pulled up hard, her feet frantically back-pedalling against nothing, letting out a word that she'd learned on one of Logan's bad days. "How the _freak_ are you tracking me? Get off my tail!"

She did not want to smash up another U.S. plane or risk killing another U.S. pilot. But the hiss and roar of a missile, being launched from the second craft, convinced her that they didn't have the same compunctions about her.

She twisted like a fish, letting it roar past her, then grabbed the tail and shoved it downward. The missile shot up into the sky.

What now? Another lake? Or try to out-climb them? She'd run out of oxygen before they were too high to fly. And how, how, _how _did they keep finding her?

She glanced down. Below her was a cluster of buildings . . . a town. She was the only flying girl in the sky, but down there she was just one redhead among dozens. And unless they wanted to bomb a civilian target, or taxi all over the city looking for her, they'd have to break off and think of a new plan.

She cut her powers entirely and dropped like a stone.

She landed flat on her back, the ground knocking the wind clean out of her and leaving her gasping. Of course she could have slowed down before impact, but didn't feel inclined—the jolt of it felt very much like seeing Remy with vengeance in his eyes. She lay still in the field where she'd landed, letting the backpack dig uncomfortably into her spine, staring up into the sky. The breeze froze the tears the landing had jarred out of her eyes.

The Hornets flew away and were lost in the distance.

"Oh, no ya don't, boys," Rogue muttered—talking helped steady her breathing. "Ah got your number now. You kin circle 'till hell freezes over for all I care. You're not findin' me. Not when Ah gone to ground."

She stood up . . . he knees were wobbly and her balance was off. And her hair was wet. And she had only the vaguest idea of where she was. And she had no money and no phone. She hadn't expected this to matter. She hadn't counted on being forced out of the air and onto her feet. But now here she was, standing in a field in the frozen dirt, wet, lost, isolated, and with no Gambit coming to save her.

Well, it was no good standing here. Rogue shucked her backpack and fished out the jeans, sweater, and light jacket Warren had given her. They were all damp and cold, but it was better than walking around in public in her training uniform. She pulled them on and spun them dry . . . well, drier . . . then ducked down into the dirt as the Hornets swung overhead again. When they were out of sight, she pulled the pack over her shoulders again and started walking along the furrow for the nearest road.

It was only about twenty minutes' walk into town . . . a town that turned out to be Milwood, Kentucky, three states away from where she wanted to be. She stopped outside the Sinclair station, took a deep breath, and thought seriously about what to do.

Her first, deeply embarrassing and completely unacceptable impulse was to sit tight until Gambit came to rescue her. That was what had always happened before. She hadn't had to face the unknown by herself since the day he walked into her life. She was an X-Man, trained to function as a member of a team. Gambit knew how to get by on his own; she'd forgotten how to do it.

This impulse was immediately squashed. She had Gambit living in her head half the time; anything he knew, she knew. If he could survive, then so could she.

But, she admitted frankly to herself, what Gambit would do in this situation would probably be steal a car. She could do it; hot wiring wasn't that hard in older vehicles, of which there were plenty on this street alone. But she was Rogue . . . an X-Man. She did _not_ steal cars. Or shoes. Or _anything_.

What, then, could she do? Who could she call for help? Warren . . . but his number was stored in the cell phone, and calling directory assistance wouldn't do any good. They didn't just hand out the private numbers of people like the Worthingtons. Everyone she knew in Bayville was either evacuated or had stopped speaking to her years ago, when she'd been outed as a mutant. Before Bayville, there'd been Mississippi, and Irene . . . she knew Irene's number . . . yeah, right. Irene, who'd raised her up to be a dupe and a weapon because Mystique had paid her to. Not in a million years would she call Irene ever again.

There was a pay phone outside the gas station. Rogue lifted the receiver and dialed the operator. "Hello? Yeah, Ah need to make a collect call."

She took a deep breath and sank back into memories . . . her own and others'. So much easier to do this on a grassy hillside in the summer in Japan than outside a Kentucky gas station. But there were some things that people never forgot, memories that lingered and stuck long after they should have faded. Like a childhood home phone number.

She knew Remy's home number.

She rattled it off to the operator, then obediently intoned her name into the recorder. After what seemed an interminable wait, she heard a deep woman's voice. "_'Allo_?"

"Memere?" Rogue had never met the woman that had all but been Remy's second mother, but the voice was familiar to her. The trick was, of course, that this familiarity wouldn't work in the other direction. "Memere, it's me, it's . . . Ah'm Rogue."

"_Rogue_?" the voice repeated back. "_Celle de notre Remy?_"

"Remy. Yeah." She choked on the words, but forced them out. "Ah'm Remy's Rogue, Memere. Ah need help."

"_Ah, bébé. Ça va aller. Ne t'inquiète pas. Dites-moi ce qu'il te faut._"

Rogue was hardly in a state to translate her shaky second language, but she could understand easily enough the soothing tone of the older woman's voice. "Ah'm stranded in Kentucky, but Ah gotta get down to New Orleans. Ah got no money. Ah cain't fly."

"_Kentucky. Bon. Ecoute. Peut-tu trouver un moyen pour aller jusqu'a l'aeroport? N'importe quel aeroport?_"

"_Aeroport_. Airport. Yeah, Ah think Ah kin get to the airport."

"_Bon. Ecris cela._"

"_Ecris. _Right. Hang on a sec." Pen, pen, she needed a pen . . . She looked around futilely, then shrugged out of her backpack and clumsily pulled open the organizer pocket. Yes . . . there were a couple of ballpoint pens tucked into the pockets, thankfully uncrushed by her fall. She fished one out, uncapped it with her teeth, and grabbed the phone book that hung under the pay phone stand. Balancing the phone between her shoulder and her ear, she supported the book with one hand and poised the other to write. "Okay."

Memere started to intone a string of numbers. Rogue copied them down, repeating back each one in English. Sixteen digits . . . a credit card. Then the security code and expiration date. The card was in Jean-Luc's name, the address the P.O. box the family needed since the location of their house made mail delivery next to impossible.

"_Achetes un billet d'avion. Quand tu arrives, j'enverrai notre Henri pour te chercher. Ca va? Tu comprends?_"

"Yeah, _je comprends_. Thank you, Memere. You saved my life."

"_On t'attends_."

Rogue hung up the phone. She went inside and checked a road map, pinpointing where she was in relation to the nearest airport. This turned out to be Nashville, just over the state line. The attendant was eyeing her suspiciously, so she put the map back and went back outside without even thinking about trying to shoplift anything. She was hungry . . . breakfast with Warren had been almost twenty-four hours ago, and after that Kurt had been so nervous about Amanda that they hadn't eaten much of anything else. But she could wait. A day or so without food wasn't going to kill her.

She picked up the phone again, re-connected with the operator, and asked for Delta Airlines, this being the first company she could think of—it was what the Professor always used if he had to fly commercial. After navigating through a few voice menus, she finally got an agent who could book her a ticket to New Orleans on the first flight out tomorrow morning.

"Could I get the passenger's name?" asked the agent on the other end of the line.

"What?"

"Passenger's name, please."

_Oh, dang. _What was her name? She'd need i.d. to get into an airport . . . she had a passport; that would work. It was in her leg pocket, underneath the jeans. Checking to make sure no one was watching, she undid the button on her pants and fished one hand down her leg until she retrieved the wet and crumpled navy blue booklet.

"Are you still there?"

"Yeah, just a second." Holding up her jeans with one hand, she pried open the back page of the passport with her little finger.

And stopped dead.

"Miss? Hello?"

Rogue swallowed. When she spoke, her voice was strangled and a few notes too high. "Yeah."

"_Passenger's name, _please."

"Yeah, Ah got it right here. The name's Rogue . . . Azami . . . A-Z-A-M-I . . . LeBeau."

"L-E-B-E-A-U?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. Any preference on window or aisle seat?"

"Ah really don't care."

"And could I get your credit card information?"

Rogue leaned against the edge of the phone booth as she read back the numbers. A flush of heat ran under her skin, making her wish she had a free hand to pull off the light jacket she wore. It was so hard to keep her focus through the end of the conversation that she needed the agent to repeat her confirmation code back to her twice. She scribbled the number on the phone book page, then tore it out and stuffed it into her backpack as she hung up the phone.

_Rogue Azami LeBeau._ The name given to her by Professor Xavier, the name given to her by Logan, and a name given to her by Remy. He'd put this together months ago, and left it for her to find. Got her again.

It would be so much nicer if this were an annoying, flattering, and embarrassing inside joke and not a knife-twist in her gut.

_Do you know how much I hate you right this very second, Remy LeBeau?_

She took a deep breath. Then she put the passport in her backpack, snaked her arms through the straps, and started walking. One foot in front of the other. It was a long way to Nashville.

* * *

"So how's the new cell?"

Scott was liking Jeremy Royal more all the time. It was comforting to have someone around who wasn't taking this situation too seriously . . . at least to his face.

'It's good," Scott answered, feeling with his toe for the chair. He heard it grate across the floor, and the leg of it bumped his shoe. "Smaller."

"And more expensive. Welcome to Manhattan."

"That's why I live in the boonies." Scott sat down, twisting his head sideways and down so he could scratch his eye against his shoulder. The bandage itched. "So what's going on in the outside world?"

"Big stuff, actually. First off, a lot of people disappeared last night."

"Government round-up?"

"Not looking like it. A lot of them left notes for friends and family, saying that they were going somewhere safe. At least a handful of them were known mutants . . . a few had even registered."

Scott grinned. That was Rogue and Kurt's handiwork. _You go, guys._

"You know where they went?"

"Yep."

"Not going to tell me?"

"Nope."

"Okay, then. Here's the other surprise. I got an e-mail last night. The sender's information was encrypted. But it had a file attached . . . monster of a thing."

He was pausing for dramatic effect. Scott waited, then caved. "And what was the file?"

"Your house's security feeds."

Scott nearly jumped out of his chair. "The video?"

"Audio, too. Very decent quality."

"And they back up what I told you?"

"Every word. And there's some beautiful footage of your friend Drake leaving a snail's trail of blood down the hallway while a federal sniper just watches him die. Incidentally, he is okay, right?"

"Yeah, he's fine. Good mutant ability and a good night's sleep."

"That's reassuring. That shot's gonna be solid gold with a jury, though. We've got every resource checking the validity of the recording, and so far it's looking great. We may actually have a case here."

"Fantastic." And that was the handiwork of Gambit and Kitty. Long live the X-Men. "I might just be home in time for dinner."

"Well, maybe not dinner, but possibly a late breakfast. At least tell your girlfriend not to give up on you."

Scott laughed. "I'll be sure to let her know next time she calls."

* * *

"Oh, my gosh. That's it, isn't it?" Jean, gasping from the effort of reaching the ridge on which she now stood, pointed down into the basin of the next valley. An irregularly shaped lake filled the bottom of it, and on the far shore, peeking through the trees, was the corner of a gray roof.

"Yeah," Logan confirmed. "That's it."

"Well, let's go, then!" She started off, slightly too fast for the steep incline; she had to skip to keep her balance. After a few yards, she skittered to a stop and turned around. "Hurry _up_. Why am I the one setting the pace when you're the one whose legs aren't killing him?"

"Because I'm the one who has the sense not to run full-tilt at a scared girl with claws." He started down the hill after her, his pace more sedate, never letting the ground slip out from under his feet. "Take it easy. She needs the time to figure out what to do with us."

Jean's eyes darted involuntarily up into the trees. "You think she's watching us?"

"I think she's gonna know we're here long before she lets us see her."

"I'll keep watch." She touched a finger to her temple.

Logan nodded. _Let me know what you hear._

_ Will do._

Jean kept silent the rest of the way down the mountain, listening hard. Logan could be hard to spot telepathically; anyone with similar training would probably be just as invisible.

_She's definitely been hiding out down here. Her scent is cris-crossing all over the place._

_ You think she's going to try to hurt us?_

_ No._

_ Then why are you so jumpy? You're giving me goosebumps._

_ You're reading me without permission again, aren't you?_

_ I am _not_. You're projecting._

_ I'm not projecting._

_ You are. In fact, I've never heard you project so loudly in your life. Are you tired, or freaked out, or mad at me, or what?_

_ Gonna be pretty mad at you in a minute._

Jean snorted, but left him alone.

The cabin was built of interlocking whole logs, like Lincoln Logs . . . a single square room about twenty feet by twenty. The wood shingles had darkened with age, and broken branches and old leaves were scattered across them. A stone chimney projected from the back wall. There were two small windows, grimy and glazed with old, warped glass. The door was heavy wooden planks, the hinges iron. Between the cabin and the lake was a cleared space, where a ring of stones marked a fire pit. A well-beaten dirt path wound down to the edge of the lake.

Whoever had cleared the trees away had left one stump as a chopping block. The surface was thoroughly gouged from lots and lots of use. As Jean walked past it, she stooped and ran her fingers across the cuts. The freshest ones were in pairs. But many of them cut across older marks, worn with weather and age—wide, single cuts, from a hatchet blade. There were none of the familiar triple marks her eye had expected to find.

Logan was no longer right behind her, but for the moment Jean didn't care enough to notice. Her feet drew her onward, towards the building.

There had been a handle on the door once, but it lay half-buried in the dirt. Indentations marked the spots where it had been fastened to the wood. Jean dug her gloved fingers in between the door and the frame and pulled it open.

The smell of must and rot and mold hit her hard in the face. But what hit her harder was the images.

_Silver hair matted with dried blood . . . pointed yellow teeth flecked with foam . . . long, hard, dirty fingernails . . . the salty, acrid scent of gunpowder . . . a maddening, nauseating mix of adrenalin, testosterone, serotonin, dopamine . . . the roar of rain and silence pressing in around her head . . ._

Jean jumped backwards, missed her footing, and fell hard on the frozen earth. Her heels dug into the ground as she crab-scrambled gracelessly away from the door. What the . . .? Was the place haunted? It wasn't enough for her to be a telepath, now she'd blossomed into some kind of clairvoyant, too?

Her back hit something, and she tried to scramble away from it, but it turned out to be Logan's knees. He grabbed her by the shoulders and held her still until she stopped throwing herself all over in panic. "Jean? Jean, what happened?" He crouched next to her, taking her head in his hands to keep her from trying to thrash the images out of it. "What did you see?"

"It's in the house . . ." she choked, then caught herself. Houses didn't have minds or memories; only people did. And the only other person here was Logan. Once she remembered these simple things, everything made a lot more sense.

She forced her eyes open and looked into his face. His dark eyes were a little too wide with worry, and the palms of his hands were a few degrees warmer than she remembered his skin being.

It wasn't in the house. It was in him.

She reached up and put a hand to his face—an old, bad habit, a crutch. Physical contact didn't enhance telepathy like proximity did, but when first she'd learned to use her powers she'd reflexively touched those she was trying to read. The sudden need to do it now only told them both how shaken up she was.

"What happened here, Logan?" she asked, her voice cracking like she was about to cry. "You saw a memory. _What happened in that house?"_

"Nothing you gotta worry about," he assured her, covering her hand with his and gently drawing it away from his cheek. "Just breathe deep. This'll pass."

"Who's the woman with the silver hair?"

He paused. "You saw her?"

Jean's other hand strayed up to fret at the side of her head. "She had blood in her hair, right here . . ."

He took her by the wrist and gently pulled her hand away. "Don't."

"Who was she?" When Logan didn't answer, she begged. "_Please_, Logan!" She felt a convulsive shudder run through her entire body.

Logan slipped out of his backpack, stripped his coat, and wrapped it around her shoulders. "You're going into shock. We'd better get you warm."

"I need to know."

Unless she could give a name to that woman, establish her history and her relationships, make her a real person instead of a daylight nightmare, Jean doubted she'd ever be able to sleep again. She grabbed Logan by his uniform sleeve, her other hand still holding the coat closed around her shivering frame, and stared straight into his bottomless eyes.

He must have seen the desperation in her gaze; he relented. "You need to get warm first," he insisted gently, prying her fingers from his arm. They clamped around his hand, and he held them for a minute, squeezing back to reassure her. Only when she let go of her own free will did he stand up and head into the cabin.

Jean wormed one arm at a time out of her own backpack, keeping the extra coat as tight around her as she could manage. She felt too shaky to handle the extra weight or the change in her balance. Knees quivering, she struggled to her feet and staggered back towards the door.

It was the smell that did it, really. The instant the musty, abandoned smell registered in her nose, the panic hit again. She wobbled and caught the door frame, her will warring with her body's desire to turn and run.

"It's okay," said Logan's voice from somewhere in the shadowy depths of the room. "You can come in. There's nothing here that'll hurt you."

Gradually, her eyes adjusted to the gloom. The room was bare of furniture. The roof had collapsed in one corner, letting in a weak shaft of sunlight that illuminated the pile of leaves and pine needles that had fallen through the hole. In another corner, she could make out the lumpy gray form of a wasp's nest affixed to the joint where the roof met the wall. The wood of the walls was irregularly stained light and dark from water damage.

The area just around the fireplace was free of leaves and debris. The scent of woodsmoke underneath the terrifying smell of decay told her that there had been a fire in it recently. In the middle of the clear space was a pile of what looked like old, rotting pieces of fabric, possibly bedsheets, and stacked next to it was a pile of rectangular, yellow-brown objects that, when Jean squinted at them, turned out to be weather-worn books.

She made it to the fireplace and sat down. Red-brown blood and silver hair danced behind her eyelids when she blinked.

As Logan crossed in and out of the cabin, finding and bringing in wood dry enough to be burned, Jean started feeling a little more like herself and a little less like a child who'd just woken up from a traumatizing nightmare. After perhaps fifteen minutes, she felt up to going outside and bringing in the backpacks. She downed half a bottle of water while Logan coaxed fire from the branches he'd assembled.

The fire brightened the room, but also made the shadows darker and more mobile. Jean huddled as close to it as she could manage, shedding his coat when she got too hot. She could hear him outside, slicing firewood into manageable sizes. When he'd brought in five or six armfuls—enough to keep the blaze going all night—he finally sat down on the floor and started to talk to her.

Jean hardly registered his voice. Her telepathy still felt oversensitive, and without quite meaning to she saw flickers of images as he described them. She remembered scents she'd never smelled, felt the tug of familiarity drawing her to people she'd never met. She was sure she was experiencing more than he intended her to . . . but that had always been the way with them, as she struggled to grow up and he tried to shield her from all the hardships of her expanding world. She sat huddled on the floor and stared at the fire, and saw Logan's memories rise up out of the flames.

* * *

Author's Notes:

Justification for two-week upload wait: GRE! On the plus side, it's done, and on the plusser side, I think I kicked its trash. So that's nice.

And we finally have some French . . . and Remy's not even in this chapter! Weird. Next one, I promise.

'_Allo? _This is how most French-speakers answer the telephone.

_Celle de notre Remy? _The one that belongs to our Remy?

_Ah, bébé. Ça va aller. Ne t'inquiète pas. Dites-moi ce qu'il te faut. _Oh, babe. It'll be okay. Don't worry. Tell me what you need.

_Bon. Ecoute. Peut-tu trouver un moyen pour aller jusqu'a l'aeroport? N'importe quel aeroport? _Good. Listen. Can you find a way to get to an airport? Any airport?

_Bon. Ecris cela. _Good. Write this down.

_Achetes un billet d'avion. Quand tu arrives, j'enverrais notre Henri pour te chercher. Ca va? Tu comprends? _Buy a plane ticket. When you get here, I'll send our Henri to get you. Is that all right? Do you understand?

(A note on Henri's name: in the original comics, Remy's adopted brother was named Henri, but in the old animated series (which was what I was raised on) he was called Bobby. As a compromise, I decided that his name is Henri Robert LeBeau, and he answers to whatever. People tend to call him Bobby if they're speaking in English or Henri if they're speaking in French. So there you go.)

_On t'attends_. We're waiting for you.

So now that the Goshawful Repugnant Exam is over, my brain is feeling much happier and is eager to keep writing! Dang, we all have a great hobby.


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20

* * *

Gambit was stressed, over-tired, too cold, and falling asleep alone. It was a foolproof formula for giving himself nightmares. He knew this. And he knew, in the half-second of semi-consciousness before he fell asleep, that he shouldn't let himself doze off here . . . that he should pull himself together and make it to the dormitory level, take a hot shower to get the chill out of his bones, bury himself under four or five blankets, and pass out in security and privacy. But it wasn't in him. So he fell asleep on an exam table, exhausted and shivering, and dreamt in technicolor.

Rogue lay asleep on the sofa in the library. He knew how she slept, curled up tightly around herself . . . but dream-Rogue lay sprawled gracefully across the cushions, her head thrown back and the long, pale curve of her neck exposed.

He knelt next to her and bent his face to hers, brushing his nose and lips across her forehead. There was no repeat of the horrific shock that had hit them both the last time. There was no shock at all. He could touch her as he'd been able to touch other women, long before he'd even heard of the X-Men—skin to skin, and nothing else. He pulled back, to check that this person was still his Rogue, really his Rogue, then leaned down and kissed her. Years ago, he knew that she would have sold her soul for such an uncomplicated kiss . . . he was startled at how unsatisfying it was, how flat and how dull. A part of him marveled, a little contemptuously, that as a teenager he'd found this so entertaining.

She opened her eyes. Then the wall behind him opened up. Gambit twisted around to see Senator Creed step through it, not a fleck of rubble marring his expensive suit. The senator raised a gun and shot him. He watched the bullet streak through the air, throwing shock waves behind itself, and passed through his chest without leaving a mark. It hit Rogue, behind him, and she collapsed onto the cream carpet and bled and died.

Gambit had only killed one man in his life. It had been a sudden, startling, wrenching, deeply personal thing . . . his kill had been his childhood rival and brother-in-law, and had been inches from his face when his heart stopped beating. But as he raised his own gun and pointed it at Creed's chest, he realized that there was another way to make a kill. Distant. Professional. And that he had no problem whatsoever with pulling this trigger and killing this man.

He fired the gun. The recoil shoved his arm backwards into his shoulder. Creed dropped, and his eyes gleamed yellow as he fell—like Mystique's eyes, like Sabertooth's eyes. Remy stood over him and planted another round in his head. And it felt good. Dark, and bitter, and satisfying.

Something _really_ cold brushed across his forehead . . . cold and tactile on a whole new level. Gambit shuddered and gasped and shot awake. Beast had woken him with an ice cube.

"Earth to Gambit," Hank told him, his voice low but cheerful. "What happened to that legendary light sleeper?" He backed up to give Gambit the room he needed to swing his legs over the edge of the exam bed.

"Nightmares," Gambit told him, deigning to elaborate. He looked across at Kitty. She had a blanket tucked around her and pulled up to her chin. Her color was better, but the florescent lights gleamed harshly off her bare scalp. "She doin' okay?"

"She's fine. Sleeping like a baby. And so should you be. Come on . . . get yourself a shower and some food and go sleep in a real bed. Can you walk, or do you need to be carried?"

Gambit sighed. "Rogue back?"

"No."

"Den I'll walk."

Hank chuckled.

Gambit felt his brain come back into focus. "Kurt's up here, ain't he? Wasn't he supposed t'be watchin' her back?"

"She sent him up to stay with Amanda. She insisted she'd be fine by herself for a few days."

Gambit rolled his eyes upwards, as though imploring higher powers to save him from short-sighted and gullible blue teleporters. "I'll kill him." Then he remembered the dream, and wished he hadn't said it.

"Better get some sleep first. The way your eyes are sinking into your head, right now I wouldn't bet on you versus an overcooked noodle."

"Right." Gambit dragged himself onto his feet, using the side table for support. The darn thing was on wheels; it slipped away from him and bumped Kitty's i.v. stand. He scrambled to steady the stand before it could pull on her arm, then stopped.

There was a square of paper impaled on the hook from which the bag of saline was hanging. In the tapering, graceful lettering produced by a fountain pen was inscribed the number _28_. 28 on a silver stand tied to a silver needle.

Gambit swore under his breath and left the medical lab.

* * *

Rogue walked along the edge of the road for two hours before a car slowed and stopped for her. It was an uninteresting dark gray sedan, and as the passenger door popped open for her she could see that the only occupant was the driver, a man in his mid-fifties. "Where're you headed, little lady?"

"Nashville," Rogue answered. "Airport."

"Hop in."

She slipped out of her backpack and climbed into the car, holding the bag on her lap. "Thanks," she muttered, bowing her head to let her stripes hang down across her face.

The driver pulled out into the road again and picked up speed. "Long way from anywhere, ain't'cha?"

"Sure seems like it," said Rogue.

"How'd you end up out here?"

"Boyfriend ditched me at a service station a ways back."

"His loss," the man observed, giving her a glance-over that she didn't like at all.

"Not really. Ah was dumpin' his sorry butt anyway."

"I don't blame you. He do that to your face?"

Rogue couldn't stop her hand reaching up to brush the polka-dot bruises on her cheek.

"I'm guessing he didn't take the news too well."

"Seems like it. Said he'd take me as far as the airport so Ah could git home to mah folks, but looks like he got bored with the drive."

"Ah. Where's your folks?"

"Tallahassee."

Rogue was impressed with herself. The lies flowed from her almost gracefully, plausible and consistent and in character with the sullen, bedraggled appearance she presented. She hadn't ever been very good at lying . . . but Remy was the best, and Remy had taught her. It was a survival skill now.

And she'd been naive enough to be shocked when this professional liar had lied to her. How pathetic.

"Sounds like you came a long way from home for this guy," said the driver neutrally.

"Eh," said Rogue. To weasel out of the interrogation, she turned the questions around. "How 'bout you? Where you headed?"

"Home. Wrapping up a business trip."

"What's your business?"

"Hardware."

"You got, like, family and stuff?"

"More or less. I'm on the road a lot, though. Gets lonely."

_Aw, crap. _She knew that tone, and it meant trouble. "Yeah, that's rough."

"Sounds like you'd know about that yourself."

Rogue shrugged. She curled up tighter around herself and stared deliberately out the window.

"Hey, don't worry about it," the driver told her. "Everybody falls on hard times. Nothin' to be ashamed of. We'll get you to the airport, maybe get you somethin' to eat, it'll be okay. No problem."

His hand settled on her thigh, well above her knee.

Rogue lashed out. She wanted to elbow him in the face, but she couldn't afford to crash the car. So she grabbed the joint of his thumb and _squeezed_. There was no mistaking the strength of her hand for anything less than superhuman.

"Don't touch me," she ordered softly. The three words were her battle cry, her mantra; she didn't need to raise her voice to make them deadly. "Ah know you don't believe me, but Ah'm really tellin' you for your own good. Don't you lay one finger on me. You just drive this car to the airport. You ain't gonna make any phone calls and you ain't gonna stop for gas. Yeah, you picked up a hitchhiker and she's a freakin' mutie, and that sucks for you. But Ah don't wanna hurt you or steal from you or anything. All Ah want, in this whole world, is to get to the Louisville airport. We clear?"

The guy called her something that erased any guilt she might have felt about almost dislocating his thumb.

"Good." She let go of his hand and brushed it off her leg. "Have a nice drive."

* * *

Kitty gradually came to the realization that she'd been dreaming. Something was hovering at the edges of her half-consciousness, something wonderful and exciting and glorious. She struggled to remember if this wonderful thing were a dream, something she should sink back into, or something that she should be hurrying to wake up for.

But the more she tried to figure it out, the more lucid she became, and the dream, if dream it was, slipped farther and farther away. What _was _that thing? It had made her feel like she was waking up on the first day of summer vacation . . .

No, not summer vacation. It clicked all at once. Not summer, or a birthday, or anything . . . it was _Piotr._

The memory burst into her mind like the first rays of sunshine creeping over a window frame. Piotr, cradling her impossibly gently in his arms, his kisses canvassing every inch of her face . . . _Peter, Peter, Peter . . ._

Her eyes shot open and she jumped out of bed. Or, at least, she tried. What she actually managed to do was to get her head and shoulders about four inches off the mattress. Then she collapsed back onto it and lay gasping.

She was in a medical lab. Was she still captured? She forced her head up and tried to look around. She wasn't strapped down . . . what her panic had interpreted as restraints was just a blanket, tucked in tight around her. But there was no Peter. If she hadn't dreamed the whole thing, then wouldn't he be here?

"Hello?" Drat, she had no volume at all. "Anybody there? _Hello? _I want my phone call!"

"Kitty?"

Her heart felt like it was giving an awkward twist inside her chest. The voice belonged to Lance.

He appeared in her field of vision, his face pale from insufficient sleep and his too-long brown hair even mussier than usual. "Hey . . . you're finally awake." He cupped her cheek in his hand, and Kitty involuntarily leaned into the warmth and solidity of it. "How're you feeling?"

"I can't get up," Kitty muttered sulkily.

"They said you'd be pretty weak for a while. You . . . you want to sit up? I can help you." He wiggled an arm between her back and the mattress and lifted her, awkwardly but gently, into a sitting position. Kitty squirmed a little, to keep from jostling the i.v. that was neatly taped down on the inside of her arm. When she was propped against the wall at the head of her bed with a pillow behind her back, he pulled the adjacent bed over and sat on it. "You gave us a pretty bad scare."

"What about—" Peter's name caught in her throat. "What . . . what about the, um, the team that came after me? Did everybody get out all right?"

"Yeah, they're good. Everybody was really worried about you. The goons who had you drained a lot of your blood . . . you needed a transfusion, and you're supposed to rest a lot and drink lots of fluids and the whole thing."

"I guess that explains why I'm so cold." Kitty reached up to scrub at her face with both hands. She stopped with her palms over her eyes. Confused, and with a dawning sense of horror, she slid both hands farther up her forehead, then straight up over her bare scalp. All she felt was skin, textured with fine, spiky stubble.

"Lance?" Her gaze snapped out of the middle distance to fix on his face. "Where's my hair?"

He gave her a regretful, apologetic half-smile. "Missing in action?"

She checked over her head again, just to be sure. Nothing but naked scalp behind her face.

Kitty had handled being drugged and locked up. She hadn't cried, or begged, or otherwise compromised her dignity. The loss of a lot of her blood bothered her not at all, except as a practical annoyance. But they had shaved off her _hair. _She was _bald._ And that cracked her. Unable to scoot herself back down on the bed, she pulled the blanket up over her head and took a couple of choked, gasping breaths that rapidly devolved into sobs.

"Hey . . ." She heard Lance's voice approach her, but he didn't touch her, for which she was grateful. "Hey, you don't have to cry. It's gonna be okay. It'll grow back; don't worry."

"Then I'm staying here 'till it does!" Her voice cracked and wavered; the sound was disgusting.

"Kitty . . ."

"Go _away_!"

She could hear the hurt in his silence. The metal bed frame creaked as he stood up, and his footsteps receded across the room.

She flung the blanket off her head. "Lance, come back. I didn't mean that. I'm sorry."

He stopped and turned around.

"Don't be mad," Kitty requested lamely.

"I'm not mad." He came back and sat down again, this time at the foot of her bed. "I'm really not. Just, y'know, short fuses. I'm still space-sick half the time, and I wasn't any use getting you out, and my powers are useless up here 'cuz I'd probably just crack the asteroid open and kill us all. It's . . . frustrating. But if it helps . . . you really look kind of cute with no hair."

Kitty scoffed. "You're such a liar."

"No, really. It's like . . . your eyes, or . . . something. I dunno. Forget it."

Kitty sighed, smiling a little. He was so much more endearing like this, awkward rather than aggressive. This was the Lance that her mind wandered back to whenever it could . . . the Lance that she dreamed about after the lights went out and before she fell asleep. What would she have given yesterday for a conversation like this? Of course, yesterday Piotr had never kissed her.

The door hissed open. Kitty's heart jumped into her throat, then subsided when she saw that it was only Storm.

"How are you feeling?" Storm asked, setting the pieces of folded fabric she'd brought with her on the side table.

"Like a jell-o jiggler," said Kitty. "With no hair."

"You'll need lots of rest and good food to get your strength back. There's hot soup waiting for you in the kitchen. I'll send someone down with it. I wanted to bring you these." She shook out the cloth she'd brought with her. "To tide you over until your hair grows back. I saw how they were worn when I lived in Cairo."

One of the cloths was a tube—the silver-gray color indicated that it had been cut from an Institute uniform. Storm showed Kitty how to wear it, like an extremely wide headband, covering her ears and all of her bare scalp up to her forehead. The other cloth was a plain square that had formerly been a bed sheet, that draped over the band, folded around her face, and fastened under her chin. The whole arrangement felt weird, but Storm knew how to arrange the trailing ends to sweep gracefully around Kitty's neck and shoulders. And anything was better than having her naked head exposed to public view and pity.

"How is that?" Storm asked, when she'd arranged the last folds.

"I guess I can get used to it," Kitty allowed, tugging a little to give her throat more room. "I can go out in public, at least. Or, you know, I could. If I could walk."

"Food and rest. I'll send Hank down to check on you."

"Okay. Thanks. And, hey, Storm . . .?"

"Yes?"

"Has . . . has anybody else been checking on me? I mean, the rest of the team, are they . . .?"

"Yes. We couldn't keep Gambit out; he refused to rest until he knew you were all right. He took your capture very hard—as your partner on the mission, he feels responsible for what happened."

"Oh." Although it was nice to know that Gambit had been worried about her, that wasn't the name she'd wanted to hear. Where _was_ he? Had he just dropped her off in this med lab like a sack of laundry and gone about his business? Kitty didn't have a lot of experience with . . . well . . . things like this (whatever _this_ was), but somehow she got the feeling that this was not how these things were supposed to go. She was not supposed to pass out in Piotr's arms and wake up looking into Lance's face. And if she did have to deal with this new and complicated situation, did she have to do it with no hair and no blood?

_So _not fair.

* * *

Author's Notes:

So . . . that GRE never knew what hit it, I think. :) Sorry for the brief chapter; I needed the split here for the next chapter, which is also short but quite stand-alone, and may possibly be up in a few hours.


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter 21

* * *

_His name had been Logan then, too. Just Logan. No one could tell him if it was a first name, a last name, a nickname or a title. Everyone just called him Logan, and he didn't remember that it had bothered him much._

_He was head of a four-man team. They were all four strangers to each other, but as skilled as anyone came. He couldn't remember how they'd been found, recruited, teamed up . . . they just were, the four of them. When mission assignments came to them, they were flown out . . . usually to Eastern Europe; he remembered a lot of cursing in German and in Russian . . . then picked up and flown back to the stark bare coastal base when they had completed whatever task they'd been given. There was no training—all four of them were self-motivated enough to stay in prime condition without additional instruction._

_He didn't actually know who they were working for. In the vaguest way, he assumed they were on the side of the "good guys" . . . some U.S. or Canadian agency, or a division under the auspices of the U.N. or NATO. He didn't ask too many questions. Black ops was just like that. Even when you were up to your neck in it, it was still need-to-know, and there wasn't too much that the actual operatives really needed to know. They just did their jobs. And Logan was a good operative._

_The others were, too. Logan didn't know much about where they came from or how they'd learned to do what they did, but he knew enough to appreciate that the other members of his team were up there with the best in the business. Maverick was a mutant, too, his body a battery and an energy converter. Anything that hit him, he absorbed and could re-direct. He was a decent marksman and good with hand-to-hand, but a genius with communications. If it sent or received, Maverick could play it like a violin. Beyond that, he was low-key. Non-confrontational, professional, friendly enough. Logan liked Maverick. Good guy._

_Creed was a good operative, too, but he was problematic. Six foot six, tawny and toothed like a lion, Victor Creed somehow registered in Logan's brain as more animal than man. Like Logan, he was a self-healer, nearly impossible to kill. He, too, could track by scent. But while Logan liked to stay detached, killing only when he couldn't avoid it and then from a distance, Creed lived for the up-close-and-personal kill. Which was convenient, in a way. If there as a messy element in any job, Creed would take care of it and be in a good mood for days afterward. Useful, yes, but worrisome. If Creed someday decided he was done being a team player, Logan couldn't guarantee he'd be able to bring the other mutant down._

_Silver Fox was the team's only woman, and only non-mutant. Though she couldn't be older than thirty-five, her long, thick hair was the color of moonlight on water. She wore it always in one braid straight down to the middle of her back. Silver Fox never smiled. She spoke only when it was necessary. She took her orders, did her job, and kept strictly to herself. In the beginning, Logan had been wary of having one woman stuck in the middle of a three-man team, but she'd made it clear from the outset that she was not to be an object of anyone's desire. She was here to work. And she was good. In marksmanship, munitions, and basic survival skills, she was far and away better than the rest of them. So Logan stopped worrying, and came to appreciate and rely on her professionalism. He'd all but stopped thinking of her as a woman by the time she came to him._

_In characteristic fashion, she made no fuss about it. It was a warm, bright summer night. The team was in base—there hadn't been a mission for them in weeks. Logan was bored, but not discontented. He was settled in his room, passing the time by disassembling and cleaning the SIG P226 he carried in the field._

_She walked into his room without troubling to knock. Logan looked up, half expecting that she'd come to bring him the news he'd sort of been anticipating for weeks now: that Creed had gotten drunk and tried to kill a teammate, or actually had killed one of the support staff. He stood up when she entered, ready to deal with whatever problem she'd brought him. But she said nothing. She just walked straight into his arms and kissed him, declaring her love and claiming his in one astonishingly simple gesture._

_Before that instant, he could take her or leave her. But as soon as her scent filled his head, he needed her. And overnight, they became a team within the team. Logan didn't give her preferential treatment or try to keep her out of danger on missions . . . he knew she could handle herself. But when he counted heads, she was always first. When he checked the team for injury, she was the one he cleared before moving on to the others. And when she failed to make a rendezvous on time, instead of simply waiting for as long as he could, he went back to find her. All perfectly legitimate, all well within protocol. But it was enough of a change in his behavior that someone could notice, if they were watching carefully. And everyone was._

_Maverick figured it out, just by being a canny and observant person. All he did was offer Logan one or two congratulatory, conspiratorial smiles and then leave the pair of them alone. But Creed was another matter. Of course he knew . . . the change in their scent was screamingly obvious. He started drinking harder, and more frequently, then abruptly stopped altogether. Logan found him pacing the halls at odd hours, crossed his scent trail winding around Silver Fox's room. On missions, he got increasingly harder to control, and the team's 'unnecessary kill' stats started to rise. He'd always wandered to and from the base at his own will, but now instead of coming back smelling of booze, he came back smelling of blood._

_Logan made sure he always had a reason, but when the team needed to split up two by two, he kept either Creed or Fox with him._

_Simultaneously, the jobs got worse. Logan was no idealist; he knew that war was war and bad things happened. But even with this logic to soothe his conscience, he started having nightmares. Their espionage strikes moved from military targets to civilian ones. The information intercepts got harder to do, requiring more bloodletting. And assassinations got popular._

_Everything came to a head on one particularly nasty job. It was in a private home, large, expensive, isolated, and well-guarded. Logan had been feeling good about it . . . the target was just some stupid file full of papers, nothing he had to care about. To bypass security, they split teams again, Fox and Maverick handling the electrical problems while Creed and Logan went inside. They found the target room without trouble. Logan had been briefed to expect an office. Instead, it was a child's bedroom._

_Two children. Two boys, the one maybe eight, the other no older than five. Both were asleep. Logan stopped at the door, trying to figure out how he'd ended up in the wrong room, but Creed pushed past him and crossed straight to the older of the two._

_"Leave 'em be," Logan hissed. "We're hitting the target and we're gone."_

_"They are the target." Creed rattled off a string of authorization codes . . . things that only Logan, as team head, was supposed to know._

_"You went over my head?"_

_"They came to me."_

_"Why?"_

_"Because they needed it done, and didn't think you'd do it."_

_"Thought right. Come on, we're outta here. What good's a couple of snot-nosed kids?"_

_"Intimidation. People get attached to their kids, or so I hear. You step outside if you're squeamish." His massive paw reached for the older boy's head, long, dirty nails hooked like claws._

_Logan shoved himself between Creed and the kid, hoping more than expecting that Creed would back down. And the next thing he knew it was full-pitched battle, hand-to-hand, feeling claws sink through his skin and tear his flesh, his own knife springing into his hand and finding purchase in muscle and matted hair. Furniture broke; little boys screamed and scrambled._

_Silver Fox settled the matter by putting a .38 Special through Creed's head._

_He dropped; Logan struggled to catch his breath as he forced himself onto his feet. "Nick of time," he told her._

_"That's my job," she answered, activating the safety on her Glock and holstering the weapon. "Mav's got the father."_

_"Get him in here."_

_While Fox obeyed his order, he knelt and checked Creed's pulse. Still going. It would have been nice if killing the guy were that easy._

_"Get 'em out of the country," Logan ordered the father as Maverick dragged him though the door. "We'll say we killed 'em. Mav, you and me've got Creed. Fox, cover us. We're gone."_

_Creed was comatose from the bullet; the medical team guessed he'd be unconscious for at least two weeks. And Logan was left in the silence of the base to go over and over what he'd just done, to wonder endlessly if it were heroism or treason._

_When Fox came to him, all she offered was the crucial question. As bluntly and simply as she did everything, she asked, "Do you think we're fighting for the right thing?"_

_He looked at her, weighing his answer. Whatever he said was going to alter both their lives, and they both knew it._

_"No," he admitted. "I think we started that way. I think we hoped so. But I think we're bein' used and lied to, and it's been that way for a long time."_

_"So what do we do?"_

_There was only one answer. "We go."_

_And they did. That night. They took nothing but their clothes and their weapons. They walked away and never came back . . . disappearing into the wild, where civilization and its atrocities could never hope to find them._

_Creed would be incapacitated for at least two more weeks, by which time their scent trail would be long gone and they would be well out of range. But Logan still crossed water wherever they encountered it. He felt almost superstitious, but the memory of Creed's watching eyes wouldn't let him neglect the precaution. He refused to be traced._

_The sense of freedom was breathtaking. Silver Fox was of the Siksikawa Indian tribe, and had grown up learning the oldest ways of her people; the wild lands of inland Canada held no terrors for her. What Logan did not already know, she taught him. They roamed free all summer, eating what they found or killed, sleeping where they pleased. Then as the sunsets started to come earlier and the nights grew cooler, they found the old cabin._

_It had been abandoned long before they arrived. Together, they cleared out the detritus of years of isolation and restored what the previous residents had left behind: a table and a couple of stools, a rope-frame bed, a few shelves now creaking under the weight of warped and faded old books. With a border town only two days' hike away, they had access to cloth and metal and other things they couldn't make for themselves. And in the long days of work, Logan learned what Silver Fox's laugh sounded like, and rediscovered his own, and was happy._

_By the time winter set in, they were prepared and secure. The long, dark nights felt safe, calm. Logan's nightmares faded into memory and then were gone. There would never be any reason to leave this place. They would grow old here. And as the months passed by, Silver Fox's scent began to change, becoming darker and richer and sweeter, and he knew what it meant almost before she did. When he fell asleep with her wrapped in his arms, the scent infused his dreams, and instead of the old black visions of guns and blood he saw life, and sunrises, and black-haired children running free through the woods. Most mornings, he woke with his hand resting on her abdomen, and hers laid over his._

_Then Creed found them._

_Logan was gone for a couple of days on a supply run. It had been raining, on and off, for weeks, eroding the piles of old snow and raising the water level of the lake halfway to their door. Everything smelled clean and sweet and fresh—every breath was delicious. And it never occurred to Logan to worry that scents were being washed out, leaving him blind to what might be prowling through their territory. He knew every inch by now—there were no surprises here. And even if something unexpected did happen, Fox had the Glock, still fully loaded, gathering dust on a top shelf._

_The ground was starting to dry by the time he made it back into their valley. Everything was quiet. The hatchet was still buried in the chopping block, exactly as he'd left it. But the house door was open._

_He noticed it at the same instant that he caught the old, familiar, hackle-raising scent. His feet stopped moving, and his heart stopped beating. Testosterone, adrenaline, sweat, gunpowder, and blood._

_"Fox!"_

_No answer._

_He knew there wouldn't be. He knew it already. The whole story was wafting out the door in the spring breeze. Every round in the Glock had been fired, flesh had been torn open, hair had burned. He could follow every move that had been made as he approached the cabin . . . how Creed had entered, how he'd attacked, every move Fox had made . . . everything he had done to her before he'd finally allowed her to die . . ._

Jean flinched back, and her sudden, convulsive, involuntary movement cut off the flow of Logan's words. Her hand strayed to her head again, feeling through her hair . . . oil and tangles and dirt, but no blood. Her eyes darted around the now-darkened space of the little cabin, picking out things she hadn't seen before . . . an abandoned shell casing in the corner; a ring of five gouges in the wood of the wall cut by a widespread hand with strong, sharp nails; discoloration patterns on the walls and floor that spattered up instead of drizzling down . . .

"Jean?"

Jean forced herself to breathe again. "I'm okay," she assured him, her eyes returning to the flames. "What happened after you found her?"

Logan scoffed at the loaded yet ordinary question. "Went half crazy. Just barely kept my head screwed on enough to remember I ought to bury her, so . . . there's a clearing up behind the cabin, away from the shoreline. She's there." He glanced up around himself, taking in the decay of the building, the dancing shadows that swirled around them. "I wanted to just . . . torch this place. But the rain. Everything was soaked. And the scent trail wouldn't last long in that kind of weather, so . . . I went after him."

"That's what he wanted you to do."

"Yeah."

"Did . . . did you ever catch him?"

"I guess not." He cast a glance skyward, indicating the Avalon station where the thing called Sabertooth was, decades later, still prowling. "Truth is, I don't know. It all kind of gets fuzzy again after that. Even most of what I just told you, I didn't remember two hours ago. It's the smell. Brings it back like a ton of bricks."

Jean involuntarily took a deeper breath of the musty air inside the cabin. Tapped out of Logan's thoughts, it was once again incomprehensible to her, like looking back on images from a dream that had been vivid at the time but that was reduced to gibberish when daylight broke. For once, she was glad to be so insensible; she didn't want to experience that again. But he was still there, still re-living it with every breath.

"And this is why I had to be evacuated from the Avalon station," she murmured, half to herself. "He called me vixen."

"That was just baiting me. He and I both knew exactly what was going on the second he made a grab for you." He lowered his gaze to look at her, and Jean turned away from the fire to meet his eyes. "When all this started, with you and me . . . when I realized what was happening . . . . the first thing I sat down and thought about was how I was going to deal with it without letting you get hurt. At the time, I was thinking 'hurt' like 'upset' and not like 'maimed,' but the principle's the same. I figured as long as it didn't interfere with your life, I could think and feel whatever I wanted." He shook his head. "I can't believe I talked myself into believing that."

"This isn't your fault."

"Really. How is it not my fault?"

"You didn't do anything wrong."

"What's that got to do with it? All this happened some thirty, maybe thirty-five years ago, and I've got more memories of tanglin' with Sabertooth than I can ever hope to sort out, and he is still walkin' around up there. I haven't killed him. I should've when Fox plugged him—should've just had his head off . . ."

"If you had," Jean cut him off, reaching over to grasp his arm, "Fox wouldn't have gone with you. It would have been arbitrary and inhuman, and beneath you."

"It would have been smart."

"You didn't know that then. You did what was necessary and what was right, right in that moment. That's what you've always done. That's why she loved you."

"Ghost whispering now? Your powers're gettin' a little out of hand."

"It's why _I_ love you, too, Logan."

He shot her a glare that could freeze blood. Jean sighed and rolled her eyes. "That came out wrong, but you know what I mean."

He closed his eyes and held his breath for a second. "Do me a favor, Red. Just . . . don't ever say that again."

Jean already wished that she hadn't said it to begin with. That was way too complicated a problem to get into right now. She looked away from him, suddenly registering that it was dark outside.

"Where is she?" she asked, grateful for the excuse to abruptly change the subject. "It's got to be freezing out there."

"She might not even be in the valley." Logan dropped the awkward moment as though it had never happened. It still had, of course; he was just good at pretending. "Food's got to be hard to come by this late in the season. She might have to range out pretty far to find anything to hunt."

"Or she could be hanging around outside the door, trying to decide if she's going to kill us or what."

"It's a possibility."

Jean glanced at the doorway, then around the sparse little cabin again. Her eye fell on the clump of fabric near the fireplace, more nest than bed. "That's where she's been sleeping?"

"Yep."

"What happened to the bed? There was a lot of furniture in here when you left . . . where did it all go?"

"She probably burned it. Convenient pre-chopped firewood. The books, too. Dry tinder's pretty valuable when it's been raining for a week."

"Not all the books, though."

She leaned across to the stack of gray volumes, which were carefully placed outside the range of where any sparks from the fireplace might hit them. The top one crackled in protest as she tried to flip through the pages; they were frozen in rigid waves, the result of water damage. She tipped it to the light to read the cover: _Little House in the Big Woods_, by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

"I read this when I was a little girl," she observed, turning the volume over in her hands. "How appropriate."

She gingerly eased the book open to a random page. It was too dark to read more than a smudge's worth of text. She pressed her finger along the length of the gutter, trying to loosen the cracked binding a little so she could open it further, and the side of her hand felt something scratch against the skin.

She ran her fingers over the page to find and examine the scratchy-things. They were cuts in the paper. Not irregular tears with ragged edges—small, precise horizontal cuts less than a quarter of an inch long. She turned the page and felt the next one. The same cuts repeated, in different spots.

"What _are_ these?"

"Books, Red. They're the latest thing."

"No . . . she's been cutting the pages."

"Burning them after all?"

"No. Look." Jean set the book on the floor and pressed it open where orange light still spilled across the floorboards. "Just cutting."

Logan leaned closer to her and brushed his fingers over one of the pages. "Has she been using these for ransom notes, or what?"

"Nothing's been cut out. It's just . . ."

"Like underlining," Logan finished for her. He took the volume and flipped to another spot in the text. "Never through the words, just under 'em." He compared the recto and verso of one particular sheet, then flipped to the next and did the same with it. "Same word."

"No. This one's 'the'."

"Other side."

She flipped the page. "Oh. 'Laura'." She checked down the page, tipped the book towards the fire to catch some more light. "Laura here, too. Laura." Next page. "Laura, Laura, Laura. She's done the whole book like that."

"_Laura._"She saw a smile, or a shadow of one, flicker across his face. "Well, she needed a name. Looks like she found herself one."

"Laura?" Jean thought about it, remembering the few brief glimpses she'd had of the fierce, lonely little girl with the straight brown hair, trying to match the borrowed name to the half-forgotten face. "Laura. I think I like it."

"We're glad you approve. Let's see if it works."

He climbed to his feet and walked straight out the door. "_LAURA!_"

Silence answered.

Jean followed him to the door of the cabin and waited there, straining every sense. Logan was waiting outside, standing still in the middle of the clearing. Nothing moved, but the tension radiating off him, the intense, breathless sense of expectation, was keeping her where she was. Something was going to happen, any second. Logan was sure.

She heard something—a whisper, too soft for her to tell if it had been auditory or telepathic. Her head snapped towards it, but Logan rebuked her. _Don't move._

Jean held her breath.

A mind faded out of the darkness, then a silhouette. The figure was crouched low, almost hunched against the ground, and Jean could taste red-hot panic and raging curiosity all twisted up together.

"Laura," said Logan, his voice hardly more than a breath. "Laura. Laura. Laura." He lowered himself down to crouch over his heels, then eased onto his knees. It was a vulnerable, hard-to-defend position, and it brought his head down to a level with hers.

The figure shifted, moving neither towards Logan or away from him, but sideways, seeing if he would move after her. He let his head pivot to follow, but didn't shift his weight. "Laura. You picked it, didn't you? It's a good choice, Kid. I like it."

She shifted again, her head leading and her body following, like a snake. Jean heard a quick intake of breath, double-count, and a snort of air being expelled from the nose.

"That's it," Logan encouraged gently. "Smell me. You know me. You _know _me, Kid. You know I wouldn't hurt you. I'm a wuss compared to you. You can take me, if you need to. You've circled the place a dozen times by now, so you know there's no one here but Jean and me."

_Jean and I_, Jean corrected to herself.

_Jean and me,_ Logan corrected back.

Jean thought about it for a second. _Drat, you're right._

"There are people out there," Logan continued, as if the exchange hadn't happened. "Back down in the States. They're trying to make our kind disappear into the dark. Take away our lives, and our names. But I am not gonna let that happen to you, Kiddo. You hear me?"

The silhouette moved forward. The moon had risen, and the sky was clear, so it was surprisingly bright in the clearing even without the flickering red light of the fire in the house, and visibility was good.

The girl who'd claimed the name of Laura was so absolutely filthy that it was hard to find the resemblance to the intruder Jean had seen a few times in stills taken from the house's security cameras. That girl had been immaculate in every way: dead-straight hair, fierce blank eyes, posture that was almost painfully, aggressively straight. This one was a wreck by comparison. Her dark gray uniform was mottled with old stains and torn in several places, leaving her bare skin exposed to the freezing air. Her hair looked longer, but it had matted into dreadlocks and was entangled with sticks and old leaves, and the skin of her face was covered with dirt and blood. She looked more like an animal than a girl.

Jean shifted down to squat on her heels, but didn't go to her knees as Logan had done. This child had once taken out her entire team; Jean had good reason to be just a little bit afraid of her.

The girl feinted, dodging forward in a quick, sudden jerk. Jean jumped, but Logan didn't. He just kept talking, without a waver in his deep, steady voice. "You've been out here way longer than you were equipped for, weren't you? They taught you to spy and fight and kill, but nobody taught you what you needed to survive out here. But you're smarter than they made you. You showed 'em. You're still alive, and you're still free. But it's taken a lot out of you. Out here for months and months with nothing but the silence. A name and no one to call you it. Laura."

There was a high, sweet note as metal slid against metal, and the girl shrieked on a note barely half an octave lower. She was in the air before the sound hit Jean's ears, all four claws out. Logan rose to meet her, and his claws crashed into hers, threes and twos interlaced, knuckle to knuckle.

"You're still fast, though," said Logan, and though his back was to Jean she could hear him smiling. He loved a good fight, and this girl could give him a run for his money. "With all the vitamin deficiencies you've got going on, that's pretty impressive."

She shrieked and squirmed, and he pushed her a little bit away, not unlocking their claws but gaining some distance with his superior reach. "Don't even think about kickin' me. I've come a long way to find you, and I don't want a hole in my leg as payback. Okay?"

The girl gave another shriek, but it was half-hearted, and as she ran out of air her breathing devolved into chokes, then moans. It was the sound of a little girl who was in deep, inescapable pain and yet was forbidden to cry. Jean's heart twisted inside her in sympathy.

Logan swung his hands out away from himself, letting her stumble closer to him and fall against his chest. He unlaced his claws from hers and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. She grabbed him around the back held on, choking and gasping and groaning with months of pent-up loneliness and misery and fear.

"It's okay," he told her. "It's okay. I'm right here. I've got you. I've got you, Kid. You're not alone. Laura. Laura, Laura, Laura. That's you, and no one's gonna take that away from you. Laura. I got you."

Jean stood up; her legs ached from holding the crouched position for so long. Her arms wrapped involuntarily around her torso. As she watched the pair of them, wrapped up in metal and shared sorrow, she suddenly felt with startling, unsettling, and starkly unfamiliar acuteness that nobody, right now, had got her.


	22. Chapter 22

Chapter 22

* * *

Rogue stopped just outside the big glass sliding doors of Louis Armstrong International and scanned the long line of cars waiting to meet the passengers from arriving flights. It was, thank goodness, _warm_. The sky was gray, but the air was rich with humidity and did not make gooseflesh rise on her skin. If she survived this ordeal, she was going to take steps to make sure she was never cold ever, ever again.

"Rogue!"

She whipped her head around, adrenalin hitting her bloodstream automatically even though she recognized and trusted the voice. She was still keyed up.

Her heart twisted a little even as she smiled. The young man who'd called out her name was both Gambit's nearest relation and not related to him at all, not in the least resembling him and yet _echoing_, in the way he moved and smiled and spoke. Henri Robert LeBeau was leaning against the passenger door of a gleaming black Audi, one ankle crossed over the other, his left hand still toying with the key it held. He was long-limbed and sandy-haired, his face attractive but not striking, and the soft gray knee-length coat he wore hanging more loosely across his shoulders and around his chest than Remy's dark brown one did on him. He wore gloves like Remy used to wear: soft black cotton things, with the fingers cut off at the second knuckle.

Rogue dodged a couple of people maneuvering large and awkward wheeled suitcases and ran to meet him. Utterly without awkwardness or hesitation, he swept her up and hugged her, lifting her easily off her feet with those deceptively slender arms. "Hey, _cherie, comment ca va?_" He set her on the ground, looked her in the face for a moment, then kissed the air just beside her left cheek and then her right. He came within a hairsbreadth of her skin, but never touched it, accurate as one of his profession and family was expected to be.

"Ah been better, but Ah sure am glad to see you."

"_Je le crois_," said Bobby earnestly. He took her chin between his thumb and the side of his hand and turned her face to get a good look at the bruises. "You look a treat. Remy been—"

"Beatin' on me?" Rogue finished for him.

"I was gonna say 'wanderin' off when he was supposed to be watching your back.' I never seen him hit a woman in his life." He pulled open the passenger door and ushered her into the car. "C'mon. Shower and food sound all right?"

"Lahk heaven." Rogue slid into the cool leather seat, and Bobby shut the door behind her.

"Well, I hope you're half-starved," he announced as he took the driver's seat and put the car in gear. "Memere's been waiting the better part of a year for de chance t'feed you."

When they were safely out of the complicated start-and-stop driving in front of the airport and into the smooth flow of ten a.m. freeway traffic, Rogue dared to inquire, "Where's Jean-Luc?"

"Out of town," Bobby told her, his voice calm and politely evasive.

"When you say 'out of town' . . ."

"Yep. Business."

"Oh."

"Lucky, really. Havin' you visit might . . . complicated . . . if de wrong people know at de wrong time."

"Why? Ah ain't been blacklisted. Ah don' even live here."

"You busted _Père_ outta Blood Moon. Long time ago, but Pinchers never forget. Dey swears you got Remy outta dey claws, too, but can't figure out how you done it. But all dat aside, you're de _petite _guildmistress's ex-husband's _nouvelle blonde_. I'd want to steer clear of dat mess if I was you."

Rogue made a non-committal sound of acknowledgment. She was not, and ever had been, Remy's _blonde _. . . in his vast lexicon of _Cadiens_ terms of endearment, he'd always reserved that one for Belladonna.

"I'm glad you came, though," Bobby told her, a little shyly. "Whyever an' however it got managed, glad you came. You got a right to dis city, too. It should've been a home to you."

Rogue sighed. "Ah ain't got a home right now."

"Yes, you do, babe. Don't worry about it. You do."

The Audi took them across town so smoothly that if she hadn't glanced at the speedometer Rogue wouldn't have realized how blazingly fast they were going. From the freeway they descended down into city streets, then headed out into narrow two-lane country highways. Finally they turned onto a dirt road that wove into the speckled gray-green shadows of Bayou Bienvenue for as long as there was solid, driveable ground. The road stopped outside a low building; not a house, but a boathouse and three-car garage. They pulled into the middle slot.

"Transfer point," Bobby informed her cheerfully. "Git down."

"Isn't it a headache, not being able to drive to your own house?" Rogue asked as she unfastened her seat belt.

"A little, yeah. But it's been useful, too, time out of mind." Bobby jumped from the car and crossed the garage, dodging around a Porsche to the place where the floor opened to the water, and two long, light motor boats were tethered. "Back in de very old days, when t'ievin' was best done on water, it saved trouble. You kin get a boat from here clean out into de harbor, an' from de harbor to Jamaica, Barbados, Cuba, Mexico."

"What, like pirates?"

"Where'd y't'ink de New Orleans Guild come from? T'ieves is just pirates dat grew legs an' learned to walk." He reached up and offered her a steadying hand as she stepped down into the boat, then pulled the engine to life and cast off.

"Ah really appreciate this, Bobby," she told him again, as the motor kicked up a white V of spray behind them and the boat reared out of the water. "Don't know what Ah woulda done otherwise."

"No more a'dat," Bobby ordered her. "It's what family does. We can't raise a finger t'help our Remy, Memere an' me, but we can help you. 'Sides which, I always did want a little sister."

She turned back to look at him. He was grinning. She tried to smile back, then turned her face forward again and watched the green-black water arch away from the prow. To smile at him, when he called her sister, was a lie.

There was no path, no markers that Rogue could see, but Bobby had known the route from childhood. And as the boat wove through the mangrove trees, She started recognizing things: a certain twist of a branch, a gap where a boat could be landed, a safe spot of deep water where adventurous teenage boys could swim on hot summer days. She was gliding through Remy's memories, and his mind rose up inside hers, strong and familiar. She couldn't escape him in the waters of his own bayou.

Then she saw the house, and his longing made her breath catch in her throat.

It gleamed white in the shadows, a tall, noble building with ranks of columns marching across the front of the facade. Magnolia trees, bare of flowers at this season of the year, flanked the building. The lawn of it sloped down to a long wooden dock, where another boat was tethered.

This was his home, and he was worked into her skin and her blood and the roots of her hair, and all of her ached with his sadness. She'd found sanctuary, but it would cost her.

Bobby swung the boat up to the dock and jumped out with a sudden, grasshopper-like spring. "Hand me de painter, will ya?"

Rogue tossed him the line, then dared a quick flare of her powers to jump up onto the dock. Bobby whipped the line around the metal piece bolted into the wood. "Come on, hurry up!"

He raced up the hill, Rogue scrambling after him on the unfamiliar terrain, though her feet kept finding sound footing even when she didn't expect them to.

"I told Memere she shouldn't touch you," Bobby yelled back to her, "but I don't think she took me seriously. You might wanna watch out."

"Ah kin handle it, don't worry," Rogue called up. She hoped she was telling the truth.

The huge double front doors of the house swung open before they could reach them. Out of them poured the most fantastic food-smells that Rogue had ever encountered, accompanied by a woman.

Rogue had only a second to gather an impression of long limbs, gold teeth, and a dark face lit by bright green eyes before Memere was upon her. She shoved Remy's consciousness away from her as hard as she could manage and sank her thoughts and worries down to the bottom of her mind, struggling to return to the calm and clarity she needed to feel and redirect the flow of her powers.

It was a near thing, but she managed it. And within a heartbeat, she was caught up in two soft, gentle, powerful arms that smelled like every good spice that had ever existed, and long fingers were combing through her hair. "_Elle est arrivée, notre chère bébé, notre pauvre petite . . . laisse-moi te voir . . ._" Memere let her go and took hold of her face in both hands; Rogue let the energy cris-cross through the back of her jaw and flow back through her cheeks and into the old woman's palms. "_Ah, qu'elle est belle . . . il y a du feu dans ses yeux. C'est bon. Elle n'est pas belle?_"

"_Oui, elle est belle, Memere,_" she heard Bobby consent, laughing, from somewhere behind her head. "_Ne la touche pas; je t'ai dit . . ._"

"_Oui, oui, tais-toi, elle va bien,_" Memere shot back dismissively. She combed one of Rogue's stripes back and gave her head a gentle shake. "_N'est-ce pas? Il te faut une douche chaude, et quoi a manger, et tous va bien aller, t'inquiete pas._" She kissed Rogue's forehead (this nearly cracked her; the whole-hearted affection of the gesture strained her concentration and her calm) and finally let her go. Rogue felt her control go all to pieces; her hungry skin seemed to reach out into the air around her, grasping for energy to devour. She rubbed a hand over her cheek to stifle the sensation.

"_Va-t-en, notre Henri. Je m'occupe avec le repas; s'occupe toi d'elle. Va._"

"We're gettin' chased outta de kitchen," Bobby translated, taking Rogue gently by the arm. "C'mon an' get yourself cleaned up."

He led her up the curving staircase to the second floor. The LeBeau mansion was not quite as big as the Institute, even disregarding the basement levels, but it was still much too big for only three people to live in comfortably. This was the sort of house that would subside into haunting the second the living turned their backs. And yet the part of her that was Remy remembered it being filled with noise . . . laughter and music, shouting matches, the loud tears of children with scuffed knees and the muffled tears of adults who wept behind closed doors, footsteps pounding up and down stairs and dancing in the big rooms on the main floor. This place had been filled with life, once, good and bad. That was all gone now.

"Dis one's yours," Bobby told her, opening a door to one of the bedrooms. "Washroom's through dere. Take your time, 'cuz de food's still gonna be a while. Memere's put out everyt'in' you need."

"Thanks—" Rogue started, but Bobby cut her off with a flick of his finger at her mouth.

"_Je t'ai dit_ no more a'dat,_ n'est-ce pas?_" His smile was so unguarded, so open, and so kind, that Rogue unthinkingly did as she was told and did not try to thank him again. "I'll holler when dey's food."

As soon as she was alone, Rogue crossed to the bathroom, stripped to the skin, opened the hot water tap all the way and stepped into the claw-footed porcelain bathtub to see what she could do about boiling her skin away. Those stupid, stupid bruises . . . she scrubbed and scrubbed, but they refused to come off. The big one below her ribs had faded from purple to magenta, but didn't appear to be getting any smaller.

It was a bit of a shock to step out of a shower and not be cold. It had been winter for so many long months now, and up in Avalon station it would be cold still. But New Orleans was _warm, warm, warm_. And as she scrubbed a towel through her hair, she looked out the window of the room she'd been given and saw that the sun had broken through the clouds and was filtering through the trees onto the lawn behind the house.

_Sunshine_. She wanted sunshine. She pulled on the clothes she found sitting on the dresser—a little big for her, but definitely women's clothes—and hopped out the window, still barefoot and bare-handed. There was a porch swing on the back verandah, and the sun streamed straight down onto it. She sat down on it, kicked off a little to make it swing, then stretched out upon it and soaked up the sunlight with every inch of her skin. She was asleep in minutes.

* * *

Scott stuck his hands through the hole in his door and submitted to being cuffed again. "Where am I going this time?" he asked the guard. He couldn't think of a reason for Royal to be talking to him again so soon.

"Exercise," the guard snapped at him.

"You do remember I can't see, right?" Scott asked. He didn't expect an answer, and wasn't disappointed. Well, if the prison's exercise facility was big enough, he could at least do some katas, get the stiffness out of his joints. He was used to hard exercise nearly every day, and days of being locked up had left him with a fidgety, itchy sensation all over, despite the sit-ups, push-ups, and other basic exercises he'd been doing to pass the time.

The guard led him through the building and downstairs, past the ground floor where he'd been allowed to talk to his lawyer to a basement. The space echoed like a gymnasium, reverberating with thumps and squeaks that sent him back to after-school hours in the stands watching Jean's basketball practice. The sound made him stop in his tracks; he hadn't counted on company. He'd figured that he was too dangerous a prisoner to be left with other people.

A door slammed behind him. "Hands," the guard ordered from the other side. Scott felt around behind himself until he found the inevitable slot, and offered his hands to be released. "You got one hour," the guard instructed, and the slot snapped closed.

Scott turned around. The irregular pounding of the basketballs had stopped.

How many paces across was a basketball court? Which way was this one oriented? Without more information about the space, he didn't want to stay away from the relative safety of the wall. Especially since the basketballs were staying silenced.

_This is not going to end well._

Adrenalin hit his bloodstream hard. And somewhere in the back of his head, he could hear Logan's voice yelling at him. _"Come on, Kid! Don't cry to _me _about how you can't see. Do something about it. Your brain ain't wired into your eyelids; if you can't _think _with your eyes closed, you've got bigger problems. So block. _Block, _don't flail around! Listen. Feel. Think. Smell, if that nose works _at all. _You can find out everything you need to know; you just gotta figure out how to do it."_

_What do I know? Wall behind me. That gives me one hundred eighty degrees of safety. Sneakers make noise; it's like they're wearing bells. Two people . . . three . . . four . . . five. Yeah, five. They can't fight five-on-one with me against a wall. There's no room._

"Hey, Mutie!"

"It's Scott," said Scott, though he wanted to yell back _Hey Flatscan_ just to get the posturing over and done with. But he had been raised better than that.

"Shoot some hoops?"

He heard the ball coming at him . . . a gentle whoosh of air that left him with barely a split-second to react. Face or groin? Face—he had time for only one guess, and thankfully he guessed right and found himself with a basketball held in his hands a hairsbreadth from his nose. He threw it back at where he'd last heard sneaker-squeaks. "No, thanks."

"You see through your eyelids? That your mutant power?"

"Nope. That's just lots of practice. You don't want to get me started on my power."

"Well, let's see it, hotshot."

Body coming in fast, from the left. He dropped to a steadier stance and blocked, knocking incoming hands away from him. The arms he blocked were thicker than his, and well-muscled. There was an open shot for a counter punch, but he didn't take it. Not yet. "_Don't _touch me."

In his mind, he saw Rogue quirk a tiny smile as her signature line came out of his mouth.

"I dunno if they brought you up to speed when you got dragged in here," said a voice to his right, "but you don't give orders. You can do exactly squat about anything."

Scott smiled. "You're wrong."

And then the punch came, and he blocked and retaliated, and the fight was on.

The attacks came fast and strong, but they were predictable. Scott had been fighting all his life, and he'd always been outnumbered. He knew how this was done. And he knew he'd never win any battle that really mattered with fists and feet, and that he would never win against so many. But he fought, with his eyes closed, trusting to instinct and training and cosmic justice to land his blows where they needed to fall. They served him well; he downed three opponents before someone caught him hard in the side of the mouth and dropped him at last. Something inside his face went _crunch_.

He was on all fours, struggling to breathe through a jaw immobilized with pain, when the guards finally broke the scuffle up.

_Jean . . ._

There was no answer.

* * *

Author's notes:

French lessons galore! Sooooo much galore.

_Je le crois: _I believe it.

_Nouvelle:_ New. (I assume y'all know _petite _and _blonde_.)

_Elle est arrivée, notre chère bébé, notre pauvre petite . . . laisse-moi te voir . . . _She came, our dear baby, our poor little one . . . let me look at you . . .

_Ah, qu'elle est belle . . . il y a du feu dans ses yeux. C'est bon. Elle n'est pas belle? _Ah, she's beautiful . . . there's fire in her eyes. That's good. Isn't she beautiful?

_Oui, elle est belle_: Yes, she's beautiful.

_Oui, oui, tais-toi, elle va bien_: Yeah, yeah, shut up, she's fine.

_N'est-ce pas? Il te faut une douche chaude, et quoi a manger, et tous va bien aller, t'inquiete pas. _Isn't that right? You need a hot shower, and something to eat, and everything will be fine, don't worry.

_Va-t-en, notre Henri. Je m'occupe avec le repas; s'occupe toi d'elle. Va. _Go on, our Henri. I'll take care of the meal; you take care of her. Go.

_Je t'ai dit: _I told you.

_N'est-ce pas?_ Isn't that right?

Whew! That was a lot of French lessons.

I've been so excited to see so many people adding _Flight Risk _to their favorites! I hate to beg for reviews, but . . . please? Feedback is such a terrific motivator . . . it's what keeps me writing and posting. So let me know what you're enjoying, what you're wondering, where I need to improve. _S'il te plait?_ And _mille mercis _to all of those who have been reviewing. You're my heroes!


	23. Chapter 23

Chapter 23

* * *

Jean sat up. It was just barely too early to be awake; it was bright enough to see, but the colors of everything were washed out to dark grays and browns. She felt Logan, on the other side of the fire, wake up just enough to check for trouble before subsiding into unconsciousness again.

"He stayed awake a long time," said a voice, barely above a whisper. Jean turned around. When she'd fallen asleep, Laura had been next to Logan, curled up within arm's reach and with nothing between her and the door. Sometime in the night, she'd moved her nest of rags and detritus away from the fire, off into the darkness where she felt safer. She was sitting up now, a dread of hair hanging between her eyes.

"Yesterday was really hard for him," Jean whispered back. "He stays awake when he's worried, to be sure everything's all right. Did you sleep?"

She shook her head, and the dread waved in front of her nose. "I don't need to sleep."

"What, ever?"

"Not for a long time."

"So what did you do all night?"

"I watched you."

Creepy as the words were, the tone made them creepier; it was fierce and suspicious, as though Laura was as afraid of Logan and Jean murdering her in her sleep as Jean was worried about her murdering them.

"Wow. That must have been . . . really boring."

Laura didn't answer.

Jean cast her mind about for something to say, some topic of conversation to bridge the gap between her own normal self and this child, soldier, wild-animal creature that sat watching her in the gray dimness. Her eye fell on the mutilated book, still lying where she'd dropped it. She reached out and picked up the volume. "It looks like you liked this."

"It's . . . useful." Jean saw Laura's eyes fix on the book, like it was being held hostage. "There are records of how . . . how to make things. I don't know how to make things."

"Me, neither. Not things that would be useful out here, anyway." She opened the book and thumbed gently through it. "I always liked Jack the dog. I wanted to have a dog like Jack when I was a little girl. But my mom's scared of dogs, so we never got one."

Laura didn't say anything.

New tactic. "Do you like Skittles?"

Laura's head flicked sideways. "What?"

"Skittles. The candy." Jean opened her backpack, which she'd been using as a pillow, and removed the still-unopened package. "These." She tore off one corner and shook a few of the candies into her hand. "Want some?"

Laura leaned forward, far enough that she had to set one hand on the floor to balance herself, and sniffed experimentally. "They're drugs?"

Jean laughed, surprised. "No, of course not! They're _candy_. Just sugar and food coloring and citric acid."

"What are they for?"

"For eating. They're good. See?" Jean picked one up and put it in her mouth.

Laura hesitated, leaned forward again until she was nearly entirely out of her nest, then drew back a little. "Maybe you drugged one of the others."

Paranoid much. "Well, you pick one, and cut it in half. I'll eat one half, and you eat the other, and that way even if they are drugged, I'll die long before you do." She proffered the handful again.

Laura sidled forward, on all fours, ready to jump back if Jean moved too suddenly. Jean opened her hand a little wider. "The red ones are my favorites, but you can pick whichever one you want."

Laura hesitated, one hand already half-extended towards the brightly colored rounds, trying to figure out if Jean were tricking her into picking a red one or tricking her into picking something else. Finally, she darted forward and snatched a yellow one. Two broad, curved blades sliced their way out of the back of her hand, making Jean jump . . . she was used to Logan's claws, but Laura was so much _smaller_, the shock of their appearance was somehow worse. The yellow Skittle flew into the air, the claws sliced after them, and her hand snatched up both halves again before they came anywhere near the floor. She dropped one back into Jean's hand and watched as Jean put it in her mouth. Only when she was quite sure that Jean had chewed and swallowed it did she dare to try hers.

"Good, huh?" Jean asked.

Laura coughed, her dark eyes bugging a little bit. "It's _sweet_!"

Jean laughed. "Yeah, it's sweet." She handed Laura a purple one to slice and redistribute. "You've really never had candy before?"

Laura shook her head. "Once I had to take a glucose test . . . they gave me a drink that was sweeter than these. I hated it."

"Yeah, I hear those are nasty." Jean popped her half of the purple one in her mouth and let Laura take a red one. "Logan used to bring me these whenever he came home," she murmured, jiggling the ones that remained in the palm of her hand. "He'd go away for weeks, months at a time, and then just show up some random night, sometimes with his clothes all in shreds, always smelling _horrific_, but he always had a bag of Skittles for me."

"Why?"

"Because he knows they're my favorites." Jean leaned in a little bit and let her voice drop conspiratorially. "What you need to do is just go try every kind of candy that there is, and pick which one's your favorite, and then let Logan find out. I bet he'll bring it to you every time he comes home."

Laura's dark brown eyes solemnly examined Jean's face. "I don't have a home," she announced, matter-of-factly and without a shred of self-pity.

"I think," Jean murmured back, "that's why we came to find you."

Behind herself, Jean felt a warm telepathic flicker. She twisted around, smiling. "When did you wake up?"

Logan hadn't moved, and still looked for all the world like he was completely unconscious, but he answered her without opening his eyes. "Couple of minutes ago."

"And you eavesdropped?"

A subtle smile appeared on his face. "Just listenin' to my girls."

Jean's smile widened involuntarily. She liked that.

He opened his eyes and sat up. "Hey, Kiddo," he told Laura. "Didn't sleep, did you?"

"Sleep wasn't a priority," Laura told him.

Logan nodded. "Yeah, you're right. Good instincts."

_Doesn't she need to sleep? _Jean asked. _She's gonna go crazy._

_ You think she's not crazy now? She isn't gonna sleep until she trusts us. Better get used to it._

_ Looking at her makes me tired._

_ Suck it up. _"How about food? When was the last time you ate?"

"I'm eating now." Laura nodded at the three remaining Skittles in Jean's palm.

"Food with vitamins, darlin'. From the look of you, you've been living off straight meat all winter and probably most of last fall. Now shooting, stabbing, incineration, nuclear bombs . . . you can walk away from any of that. But vitamin deficiency'll kill you." He grabbed his backpack and threw an energy bar at Laura's head. "Cliff bar. Eat it. You too, Red." A second bar flew through the air. Jean TK-snagged it and dropped it into her free hand.

Laura held the bar, but didn't open the wrapper. Her voice suddenly suspicious and aggressive, she demanded, "Why are you here?"

Logan tore open his own pre-packaged breakfast and took a bite. After he'd swallowed, he answered, "Could ask you the same thing. You got here first, so you answer first."

"That's not relevant."

"Maybe not, but there's two of me and one of you, so that's how it's gonna be."

Laura's eyes flicked between Logan and Jean again, sizing them up as opponents. Against both of them, her odds weren't good, and they all knew it . . . besides which, no amount of fighting was going to make either of them answer her question.

"Everywhere I've ever been, I either blew up or I can't go back to," she snapped at last. "They're all highly secured, all strategically important. I had nowhere to go. So I looked for your places. They were all the same. Except this one. No one cared about this; everyone forgot it . . . even you."

Logan nodded. "I get ya."

"How long have you been here?" Jean asked.

Laura shot her another fierce, none-of-your-business look, but she answered the question. "Almost five months."

"Through the middle of the winter? With no supplies?"

"I can take care of myself."

"We know," Logan told her, placating her hostility. "But here's the deal, kiddo. Stateside, they just passed new legislation saying all mutants have to be registered with the government. Anybody not registered . . . and probably a bunch that are . . . are getting hunted down and rounded up. And you're at the top of the hit list. The registry goons will want you 'cause you're dangerous. Nick Fury wants you 'cause you're valuable, and he thinks he can snag you real quiet-like in all the fuss. And I . . . I don't want to see you locked up. I want to get you way, _way_ out of the country, where you'll be safe and free and they will never, ever find you. That's what I want. That's why I came."

"I am out of the country. I'm across the border."

"Yeah . . . the Canadian border. Big whoop. These people took down a sonic manipulator and a ninja telepath in the UK not two days ago, and Her Majesty's government hasn't batted an eye. You found this place, and I found you. They will come here. Soon. And I want you to be well out of here before they do."

Laura nodded. "I'll go."

Jean saw her gaze flick back to the books. She was going to go . . . right now . . . deeper into the woods . . . but she wanted to take the books with her.

Logan saw it, too. He leaned forward and put his hand on the top book of the stack. "I don't want you to _go_, Kid. I want you to _come_. With us. You don't have to keep running."

Laura shook her head, one sharp, sideways jerk. "HYDRA wants me. SHIELD wants me. And now _you_ want me."

"I'm not them, Kid. I'm nothing like them. I'm like _you_. And you know it, or else you wouldn't be here, hidin' in the broken pieces of my screwed-up life. We're two of a kind, whether either of us likes it or not."

"Give me the books."

Logan obediently lifted his hand away. "Just thought maybe it was about time you actually had a childhood, instead of just reading about one. But I'm not going to hog-tie you and drag you out of here. You go where you want."

Laura darted forward and grabbed _Little House in the Big Woods_, clutching it to her chest with one hand. Never letting her back be turned to either Logan or Jean, she moved towards the door and out into the sunshine.

Jean brushed Logan's mind, and immediately recoiled at the tension. He was taking a huge risk, and he knew it. She didn't think that he was breathing. Best case scenario, Laura would be back in a few seconds . . . but it was also more than likely that she'd disappear into the mountains and she'd never be seen again. With such a traumatized mind, there was no way for anyone, even a telepath like Jean, to be certain what she would do.

Jean's ears were ringing. No . . . that wasn't the thrum of blood in her ears, it was something else, loud but far away.

"What is that?"

She felt his attention swing away, from Laura to the distant pulsing sound. "Chopper."

Then in a heartbeat they were both moving, shooting out the door. "Laura!"

Laura was in the middle of the clearing, standing upright and motionless, her eyes fixed on the sky. "Two choppers," she announced. The book was still clutched tightly in her left hand. "One over the lake with the island in it, the other coming up on the long skinny lake."

"It's Nick," Logan snarled. "I know those engines. He knows you've got to be by water, he just doesn't know which."

"How'd he find us?" Jean asked.

"Probably got flagged when we tried to use the credit card."

"You think he's found Velocity?"

"Yeah. Would've secured that before he went lake-hopping. And we're gonna need 'er."

They would. With Magneto in the game, the metal-free craft could be the difference between life and death. "What do we do?"

Laura's head came round; she, too, was listening for Logan's instructions.

"Jeannie, you go head back into the woods and find cover. They're here after Laura, so they're using live ammo, and I don't want you shot. Laura, how are you against an in-flight helicopter?"

"Good," said Laura.

"All right. Swing southeast, around that inlet, and get high. I'll come down the other side of lake here and see if I can't get it to come in on top of you. Just cut the tail controls and crash it in the shallow water, and then at least we'll have some weapons to work with. Get going."

Laura took to her heels and was gone.

"I can—" Jean started.

"No," Logan snapped at her. "Stay hidden. Hidden, and down. We'll come back for you." And then he was off in the other direction.

Jean spent about ten seconds giving serious consideration to Logan's orders and the pros and cons of following them. Then she decided they really ought to be ignored.

* * *

"What happened?"

"Knocked out a tooth."

"How?"

"Fistfight."

"Who would he get in a fistfight with? This is Summers, isn't it? He's supposed to be in solitary confinement! What idiot put him in GenPop? Sit down, Kid."

Scott realized, a beat late, that this last bit had been addressed to him. He reached out to find what he was supposed to sit on, and found a vinyl-covered exam table.

His whole jaw was filled with a deep, fierce, aching pain, and his mouth was full of blood. He couldn't swallow and couldn't spit, so he just let blood and saliva run down his chin, vampire-like. He felt disgusting, and didn't dare explore the most painful spot with his tongue, not wanting to feel the jagged chunk of bone where his healthy, never-even-a-cavity tooth had been.

He sat, and felt a latex-gloved hand take hold of his chin. "Open your mouth," ordered someone, and Scott obeyed, hoping this person was actually a medical professional. A gloved finger slipped between his teeth and over his tongue, gently proving the bloody spot. "That's gonna need dental work. Start making the arrangements for prisoner transport. Scott, I'm going to give you a glass of water to rinse out your mouth, and then we'll get that bleeding stopped and give you something for the pain. Sound good?"

Scott nodded. Dabbing blood away from his mouth with the back of his hand, he muttered, "Thank you."

The doctor gave a dry snort of amused laughter. "Polite one, isn't he?" he commented, probably to the Corrections Officer that had brought Scott up here to the infirmary.

"Huh," the CO commented neutrally. "Mutants with manners."

"We're starting a club," said Scott.

The doctor laughed outright. "Okay, let's get you cleaned up. We'll get you to the dentist by this afternoon. You're going to be all right." The voice dropped to an annoyed mumble. "Not that the same can be said for whatever moron put you in the gym with the rest of the cons. Someone in this facility has a death wish."

* * *

Kitty woke up again, less dizzy, less excited, more confused, hungrier. She felt awkwardly for her hair and found cotton cloth under her fingers.

"Good morning," said a woman's voice, one she didn't recognize. A lady she'd never seen in her life came to stand over her bed. "How are you feeling?"

"Okay," Kitty admitted. "Who're you?"

"Liz," said the woman, smiling with a little bit of embarrassment. "I'm . . . I came up with the refugees last night. Hank's been organizing people to help out where their powers and skills can be useful, and I'm an RN, so I'm on medical duty. Is it okay if I check on your pulse and your blood pressure?"

"I guess so," said Kitty wearily. "Knock yourself out."

She dozed off a little bit while Liz fitted the cuff on her arm and counted off the pulse beats in her wrist. "You're looking a lot better," she told Kitty. "Your blood pressure's way up towards where it should be, but a lot of that is just saline. You're going to need to take it easy for a while while your body rebuilds all those red blood cells."

"Swell," said Kitty listlessly. "I needed a vacation."

"Are you hungry?"

"Like starving."

"Do you want me to bring you something from the kitchen, or do you feel up to getting out of bed?"

_Out of bed. Out to where Peter is. _That was what she would have thought, if she'd given herself permission to think about Peter. But she wanted out of this bed, _now_.

"I'm great," she insisted, fighting her way up into a sitting position. "I want to get up. I . . ." She stopped. "Am I wearing one of those hospital gowns that, like, opens in the back?"

Liz laughed. "Yep, you are. Hang on and I'll get you some scrubs."

The scrubs were duly brought . . . unfashionable mint green things, but at least they were clothes. When Kitty shook out the shirt, she found that the Institute logo had been drawn on the right shoulder in what looked like black permanent marker. "I guess my badge didn't survive any more than my hair did."

"Nope. But I'd wear that with pride, if I were you. The X is getting to be rather a big deal up here." She unhooked the clear tubing from the needle in Kitty's arm. "I'll unplug you so you can get dressed, but I'd feel better keeping you on the drip for at least a few more hours. You'll have to cart it around. Sorry."

"I got brought here naked and bald," Kitty pointed out. "I think the iv stand is kinda the least of my image problems."

Liz laughed, and Kitty found herself laughing too.

When she was dressed, plugged in, and on her feet, Liz gave her leave to head upstairs to the kitchen. The floor was cold—well, everything was cold, what else was new—but her head was pretty clear and balance didn't seem to be too much of a problem. She made it to the elevator without any trouble, wheeling the silver stand along with her.

The kitchen was on the floor designated by elevator controls as 2. Above that were two levels of dorms. She and her team had set up camp on the higher level, with bigger rooms that housed more people. She pushed the button for level 4.

The stairs, which were how she'd come up here before, were somewhere else in the irregular and unpredictable twisting floor plan. But she recognized the room she and the other X-Girls had claimed. It had a catchy door number - 4646. And across the hallway would be the boys' room.

Kitty stopped. And panicked.

She'd made it this far on impulse, urgency, and curiosity. She wanted to know . . . _had_ to know . . . what had happened between her and Piotr, what it had meant. But the sudden wave of ways this could end badly left her immobile in the corridor.

"He's probably not even in there," Kitty told herself. "It's probably empty. He's probably somewhere else. I'll just . . . no, I won't even check."

But with the knee-jerk recklessness and instant regret of someone driving through a yellow light they probably should have stopped for, she pulled open the door and looked inside.

_Oh, my gosh, he's here._

He was sitting on his bunk with his back to the door, but turned when he heard her. The part of her that wasn't freaking out was noticing with breathtaking, embarrassing vividness all sorts of things she'd never noticed before . . . like how his bright blue eyes were wise and kind, and how his faint, almost sad smile made her face and her heart flush with warmth, and how his broad arms and shoulders filled her head with memories of how it felt to be held by him. It was a really, _really _good thing he wasn't a telepath.

But he'd smiled at her. Kitty had never been good at playing it cool; she felt her whole face light up without her permission. Running at him and jumping into his arms seemed like a really good idea. But she was plugged into an IV stand. And her balance still wasn't so good. So that plan wasn't going to work.

So she waited in the doorway. And he didn't come to her.

"Piotr?"

Drat, her voice was too high.

His smile widened a little. Kitty's heart thumped, and she decided it wasn't important that her voice cracked.

"You're feeling better?" he asked.

"Uh . . . yeah. I mean, I'm all, like, woozy and I have to drag this thing . . ." She gestured awkwardly to the stand. Her hand jerked up involuntarily to fret her hair behind her ear . . . oh, yeah. She had no hair.

"I'm glad."

He _was _glad. She heard it in the rich gentleness of his voice. But he didn't stand up, didn't move towards her.

"You got me out," Kitty told him.

"There was a strike team."

"But _you_ got me out."

"Yes, that was my assignment. I got you out."

"But . . . when I woke up, it was cold, and you said . . . you . . . did I . . . I didn't imagine any of that, did I? Please tell me you have a clue what I'm talking about."

His smile widened, and he laughed. "Often I don't."

She felt all the blood drain from her face. Oh, no, she'd hallucinated it all. Oh, gosh.

He seemed to take pity on her; he stood up and came across the room. "But in this case," he admitted, "I do."

Kitty suddenly realized she'd forgotten to breathe for the last several seconds. She made up for it by sucking in one big breath all at once, which made her even dizzier. "So it, like, really did happen?"

Piotr nodded. "Yes. And I said it at the time, but it bears repeating. I'm sincerely sorry for the way I behaved."

"You're . . . you're _sorry_? Why would you be _sorry_? It was . . ." Words failed. Again. She wasn't handling this very well. "Piotr, just, you know, tell me. Did you kiss me? When you saved me?"

"I did."

"Why?"

"Because you were alive."

She hesitated over her next words, trying to talk herself either into or out of saying them, before they came tumbling helter-skelter out of her. "But . . . I'm alive now, and you're just, like . . . standing there."

His faint, sweet smile reappeared. He reached one hand across to her face . . . he was still standing so far away that his arm was at full extension . . . and let his fingers graze the side of her jaw, his thumb gently stroking the corner of her mouth. Kitty leaned into his touch, but he drew his hand away, just enough to keep the contact feather-light.

"Katherine," he murmured, and Kitty felt every muscle in her body go limp and warm. If this was what swooning felt like, then it felt spectacular. She hoped he was close enough to catch her when she collapsed onto the floor in a mind-blowingly happy puddle. She wanted to swoon every day.

"I care about you," he told her, his voice soft and rich and deep. Then he stopped, and rephrased. "I care _for _you. A great deal. And I want to be for you whatever you need me to be. But what I don't want, and what you don't need, is for me to be just one more complication between you and Lance Alvers."

Lance. The name hit her like an ice cube down the back of her shirt.

"You've been injured and traumatized, and right now you are very fragile. It is a very bad time for you to be making important decisions, particularly ones you may regret later. Take some time. Consider your choices and your feelings. And whatever you decide, I will be there for you."

For just a second, she felt his fingers curl a little bit under her jaw, as though he would draw her close to him. But before she could react, his hand fell away.

"Have you eaten?" he asked gently.

Mutely, Kitty shook her head.

"Are you hungry?"

Nod.

"Come on. I'll take you down to the kitchen and we'll get you some food."

Kitty allowed him to take her gently by the arm and lead her back to the elevator, steadying her when she wobbled. His hand was big, and warm, and strong, and Kitty loved the feel of it and hated that she liked it so much. He'd saved her last night, but now she felt like she was drowning in her own problems and he was refusing to help her. She'd felt less lonely confined in the plastic tube.

Another person she didn't know, a short, middle-aged man with faint fish-scale patterns across every inch of his visible skin, was on duty in the kitchen, cleaning up from lunch. "You're Shadowcat, right?" he asked, drying his hands. "Lunch isn't ready yet, but if you're hungry there are leftovers from yesterday's dinner. Chili."

"Can you bring a bowl into the dining room?" Colossus asked on her behalf. "She's still not very coordinated."

"Yeah, absolutely."

"She likes sour cream and cheese, but no hot sauce."

"Got it." The man grinned. "I'm Mark, by the way. I don't have a fancy nickname . . . it's just 'Mark'."

"Nice to meet you, Mark," Kitty intoned politely. Piotr's steadying hand was against the small of her back, and he knew how she liked her chili. But he took her through to the dining room, pulled out a chair for her, made sure she was settled and comfortable, and left her alone.

* * *

The bleeding in Scott's mouth had stopped by the time he was escorted into the dental clinic. He was shackled at the wrists and ankles, and the chains clanked as he walked as though he were the Ghost of Christmas Past.

"We've got the chair ready. Bring him through here."

"You got the message that he's a high-risk prisoner, right?"

"Yes, and we have all the standard precautions in place. We can sedate him, if the warden thinks it's prudent."

"I won't do anything stupid," Scott assured whoever was talking. "I just want my tooth fixed."

"I don't think you need to sedate him," said the guard at Scott's shoulder. "But strap him down real good. He sent four other guys to the infirmary, with his eyes closed like that the whole time."

This was not at all the time to be self-congratulating, but Scott stored this information away for later smugness.

"Understood. Have your men bring him through."

Rough hands gripped Scott's arms and shoulders, shoving him forward. He reached out his hands to keep himself from smacking into any door frames as they maneuvered him into another, smaller room. Something bumped against his thighs: the dentist's chair. His roving hands did a quick check of its position and shape, and found a strap of thick leather with holes pierced down the middle. Cuffs. Well, he guessed it made sense, if this was a clinic to which inmates were regularly taken, to have restraints. With freedom just beyond the unlocked clinic door, someone was bound to try to fight his way out.

Scott climbed into the chair and lay back willingly, as the guards buckled his wrists, ankles, head, and waist into immobility. When he was secured, he heard a male voice say, "That'll do. You gentlemen can wait outside until we're done here."

There were retreating footsteps, and a closing door.

"Well, young man," the voice observed, "I can't wait to see the other guy."

"Me, neither," Scott joked back. "Do I look that bad?"

"Pretty black and blue, yeah. They sure did a number on you."

"I believe it."

He felt a gloved hand take hold of his chin tug gently down; he obligingly opened his mouth as wide as he could manage. "Well, you've lost a good chunk of your number twenty-one . . . that's your first premolar over here . . . but it looks like we can just take care of it with a filling, without resorting to crowns. The question is this: some con hit you hard enough to break off a chunk of your tooth, and you didn't even open your eyes?"

He let go of Scott's jaw to let him answer the question. "If I'd opened my eyes, I'd have blown a hole in the wall, probably let a couple of the other inmates escape into lower Manhattan, and started a media blitz about the crazy uncontrollable mutant threat. Given the choice, I'll just take the filling."

"Yeah, you're absolutely right. That would have been a media disaster. Imagine the headlines."

"'Mutant riot in New York City! Are our children safe?'"

"'Crazy unstoppable mutant menace! Step up registration! Harsher penalties for failure to register! More secure prisons!' All right, Scott, I'm going to put this rest in your back teeth so you don't have to hold your jaw open this whole time . . . is that all right, right there?"

"Ah, ahh's ouh," said Scott, assuming that dentists were pretty good at interpreting consonant-free speech. He nodded to reinforce the point, as much as he could with a strap around his forehead.

"The thing is," the dentist continued, "if you could potentially cause that much trouble for this anti-Registration-Act cause you seem to be campaigning for by blowing a hole in a prison, how much more trouble would you cause by damaging, say . . . a dental clinic?"

Scott's head recoiled back a little bit against the chair, but there was hardly any wiggle room; they'd buckled him in tight.

"I respect your courage, young man, but this society isn't the place for you or your kind. So the sooner you open those eyes, the sooner I stop drilling."

The next twenty minutes were a descent into hell. Scott screamed until his throat was raw. But his eyes stayed closed.

* * *

Author's Notes:

Hi, everybody! I'm back! I'm sorry to string out your nerves for so long. Our understaffing problems at work have smoothed out, so hopefully I'll have an hour or so a day to actually make some progress on this story. Yaay! As always, feedback, criticism, and questions are always appreciated, as is your unfailing faith in me.

Seri


	24. Chapter 24

Chapter 24

* * *

Rogue slept dreamlessly until Bobby shook her awake, back into the mid-day sunshine. "Dey's food, babe. You'd better get yourself up."

Rogue sat up obediently, shoving her stripes back off her face. The first deep breath she drew in was full of smells so delicious that every salivary gland in her mouth started going. "That smells amazing."

Bobby grinned, offering her a hand up with unconscious gentlemanly grace that echoed Remy when he was in that kind of mood. "How'd y'get down here?" he asked. "I woulda heard y'come through de hall. Jump out de window?"

"More or less," Rogue admitted. She hadn't considered that this might be rude, or at least weird. "Ah just haven't seen the sun in _so long_, it feels like . . . Ah didn't think . . ."

"You're fine," Bobby assured her. "Just never had a flyin' house guest before. It's kinda fun. Keeps me on my toes." He jerked his head towards the door. "Come on."

Rogue willingly followed him inside. There was a long-tabled dining room to her right . . . she caught a glimpse of it through the open door . . . but Bobby lead her straight past it. "Hope y'don't mind eatin' in de kitchen," he called over his shoulder. "We ain't used de dinin' room in a powerful long time."

"It's all good," said Rogue, meaning it. The bigger rooms in this house kind of freaked her out with their emptiness.

The kitchen was big, too, but there was a big difference between a quiet, echoey dining room and a big kitchen full of bubbling pots, clattering dishes, and Memere humming as she set a large ceramic soup tureen on the clean-scrubbed wooden table.

"Oh. My. Gosh." The table was a sturdy piece, but it was so covered in dishes of food that it was hard to assure herself it wasn't bowing in the middle. If this was lunch, she didn't dare think what dinner looked like.

"_Assis-toi et mange_," Memere told her, pointing forcefully at one of the chairs. "_Henri, cherche ce plat au côté du frigo_."

"_Oui, Memere._" Bobby grabbed a dish towel to protect his hands and hefted another platter onto the table. He pulled out his own chair and sat down. His hand shot for the nearest serving dish, but Memere was quicker, and laid a smack on his wrist before he could touch a crumb.

"_Grace_," she snapped.

"_J'ai faim!_" Bobby protested, whining a little.

"_Fais-la alors,_" she ordered him, sitting down in the chair at his left hand.

Bobby bowed his head and murmured a brief smattering of sentences; both he and Memere crossed themselves. Then lids started coming off dishes.

Rogue had thought that Remy could cook. And he could; he was the best cook in the house. But compared to what Memere could do, Remy's best meals looked like ramen and instant mac and cheese. Every bite of everything was magnificent, perfect, rich and spicy and full of eye-popping flavor. Rogue wasted about thirty seconds trying to to communicate how delicious everything was, then gave up and just _ate_. The first plateful was because she was hungry, and the second was because everything was delicious, but the third . . . and she was slowing down pretty drastically by that point . . . was just because every mouthful she swallowed seemed to make Memere happier.

At last, she set down her fork and sagged back in her chair, gasping with laughter and fullness. "That's it, Ah'm beat. Ah could not eat one more bite if ya paid me a million dollars."

"_Il y a du dessert,_" Memere told her.

"Oh, don't even talk tuh me about dessert."

Memere laughed at her, eyes sparkling with approval. "_Du thé, alors._"

"Tea," Bobby translated, when Rogue's brow furrowed in confusion.

"Oh. Uh . . . yeah, that'd actually be real nice. Maybe help some'a this food settle in a little bit."

Bobby moved to get up, but Memere beat him to it. When the three of them were seated again, each with a mug of tea in hand, Bobby finally got down to business. "Okay. Rogue, you sit back an' take your time wid'dat tea, an' tell us what's brought you here t'us and how we can help."

Rogue took a deep breath. The food, she suddenly realized, hadn't been one hundred percent hospitality . . . it had been to calm her down, to keep her sedated while they dealt with whatever problem she'd brought with her.

"We're, um . . . we're evacuatin'," she told them. "Not just the X-Men . . . every mutant we can get in touch with. We got a couple dozen outta the country already, and there's more packin' their bags."

"Is Remy out?" asked Bobby. His voice was calm and serious.

"Yeah, he got out with us."

"Is he hurt?"

"He was, but he's okay now."

"Okay." He nodded for her to continue her narrative, now that these important points were clear.

"Me an' Kurt . . . that's mah brother, Kurt . . . we got sent down to pick folks up. Everybody we know and a lotta people we don't. We were poolin' names, an' Gambit . . . Remy . . . mentioned somebody he particularly wanted checked up on. So here Ah am, to check up on her. Evacuate her if she wants to get out."

"Just sayin' 'her' don't narrow it down much in dis town, not if we talkin' 'bout Remy," said Bobby. "Sorry," he added, as an afterthought.

"Oh, Ah know," Rogue assured him. "But it's, y'know, _her_. Belladonna."

Memere sat up abruptly; Bobby's head snapped up. "Belle's a _mutant_?" he demanded.

Rogue nodded. "A telepath."

Bobby stared at her, then slouched back into his chair, abruptly producing a string of monotone French profanity that startled Rogue so much she almost jumped. She was used to such monologues from Gambit, but Bobby tended to have better manners. "She's a telepath, an' Remy never told me? He never told me Belladonna Beaudreaux is a mind-reader?" He scrubbed a hand across his face in frustration and horror.

"She didn't manifest until after he got banished. And telepathy's hard. She's had only a couple years to learn it, and nobody to learn from . . . she's not that dangerous. Probably can't even read you unless you're up pretty close to her."

"Which none of us has been, not since de weddin'," Bobby allowed, calming a little. "But _saint dieu_, dat's a scary thought."

"All Ah need is tuh talk tuh her for ten minutes," Rogue insisted. "Just gotta let her know how to get out if she wants to go. Remy owes her that much."

"He always does pick de worst times t'decide t'be a gentleman," Bobby muttered. "And t'dodge de banishment, he sent you 'stead'a himself?"

"Professor Xavier had other jobs for him tuh get done," said Rogue, swallowing hard to shove sadness and panic back down her throat. "He couldn't get away."

"_S'il a apris finalement de suivre des instructions, c'est un miracle de Dieu,_" Memere muttered. "_Peut-etre il va vivre jusqu'a son vignt-cinquième anniversaire._"

"Ah know Ah'm asking a lot of ya'll," Rogue acknowledged apologetically. "Ah just need ten minutes, and Ah'm gone."

"We'll make it happen," Bobby insisted. "Cross my heart. I promise."

* * *

Gambit woke up again unsure of what time it was or how long he'd been sleeping. He had vague memories of Colossus coming in, trying to speak to him, and giving up when he didn't respond, although that might have been a dream. He remembered just as clearly meeting Rogue at the swimming hole south of his father's house, and he was fairly sure that hadn't happened.

He dug himself out out of the mound of blankets, stolen from other boys' beds, under which he'd buried himself. The room was empty. He checked his watch; it read 11:32. He'd slept way too long. And in his clothes.

He showered and cleaned himself up, which helped a lot, but there was no escaping the fact that he simply had nothing else to wear. After pulling his uniform back on, he hesitated for a long moment with Rogue's jacket in his hand. If he hadn't detoured for this stupid jacket, none of the last twenty-four hours would have happened. The job would have been smooth, and he wouldn't have had to leave a teammate behind. Kitty would still have her hair. He would still have the trust of his team. But now, all he _did_ have was a canvas coat from 'Nam . . . not even the love of the woman to whom it belonged.

_You. Got. Stupid._ _Pay for it._

He wanted to blow the coat into ash right there. Or throw it out into the outer-space cold. Or at the very least stuff it under his bed, into the shadows. But another part of him would fight to the death before he'd be parted from it. He'd risked everything for this fragment of Rogue—it was his trophy and his curse. It had to stay with him, until Rogue forgave him or he ceased to want her forgiveness.

Besides, he was a thief, and this was his take. He pulled on the jacket, then covered it with his coat.

There. His reflection looked like Remy LeBeau, Master Thief, again. He gave the man in the mirror an affirming nod. _Oh, yeah. I can handle this. _Kitty was alive, Piotr was no longer baying for his blood, the job was successfully completed. Three for three. He was on a winning streak.

Now if only he could convince his gut of that.

He left the secure door from the dorms and headed downstairs to the common levels. Halfway to the kitchen, he passed a group of kids, all younger than him, none of whom he'd ever met before.

"Hey, X-Man!" one of them called out. The words made him defensive, but the tone was admiring. Everyone was checking out the X on his coat sleeve, then smiling at him. "Hi. What's your handle?"

Handle? That was a term he'd never heard. "Gambit," he told them.

"Gambit," said one of the girls. "Cool. I'm Crystal. Well, I'm Sarah, but Crystal's my handle."

"Too much like a normal name," said another of the boys. "I'm Marrow, and this is Tripwire, and that's Red Bull . . ."

"Yes, like the energy drink," said Red Bull.

"And Liberty and Matt. He hasn't picked a handle yet."

"I'm thinking 'Rainier'," said Matt.

"It sounds like 'rainier,' as in 'today is rainier than it was yesterday'," said Tripwire.

"That's where my powers manifested. I was camping with my dad. Mount Rainier. It's a mountain."

"I figured."

"Plus it doesn't rain in space."

"Your eyes are cool," Crystal observed—she looked to be the youngest of the bunch, no older than eleven or twelve. "What's your power?"

Gambit had never, in his life, been asked this question in such a tone of innocent, friendly curiosity, as though socially stigmatizing mutant powers were a nice topic for introductory conversation.

"Um . . . biokenesis," he said, less confidently than he meant.

"What does that mean?"

"I blow stuff up."

"Cool."

"Guys, we're gonna be late," Red Bull urged, checking his watch. "Come on."

"Late for _what?_" Gambit asked.

"Training!" said Crystal, as if this should be obvious. Red Bull pulled her down the corridor with the rest of the group, and soon they were out of sight.

He went down to the medical lab first, and was informed by the mutant on duty there . . . who introduced herself as Liz . . . that Kitty was up and about, and having lunch under her own power. This was a surprise, but a good one. She'd recovered faster than he had. He submitted to having the rumpled and wet bandage removed from his ear, then headed upstairs to see her.

He didn't make any special effort to sneak up on her, and in fact thought he was moving pretty loudly, but Kitty still started when he came up behind her and put a hand on her shoulder and a kiss on the top of her head. "Shouldn't sit wid yo'back to de door, _petite_, not a jumpy girl like you."

"Gambit," she gasped, getting her breath back. She reached up and took his hand, squeezing it with the solidarity of friendship. "Oh, gosh. Are you okay?"

"Better'n you, it looks like." He took the seat next to her and teasingly nudged the fold of cotton scarf that framed her face. "Dis is new."

"Storm made it."

"It's cute."

"It feels weird. I can't stop . . . fidgeting with it." Her hand danced up to the edge of the fabric, tugged it, fell heavily again.

He took the restless hand and squeezed it. "I'm so sorry, _Minou_. Should never've left you back at de house. An' I wish t'high heaven I could steal y'hair back."

She grinned. "Well, as long as you were upstairs, you could have grabbed my necklace. The y-shaped one."

"Wid de garnets. I know it."

"Of course, with the fuss you always make over Rogue's earrings. You've got to know every piece of jewelry we own."

"_C'est ça._" Seeing that the bowl of chili in front of her had been much picked at but little eaten, he slid it over to himself and ate a spoonful. "Ugh. Would it kill you t'put some hot sauce in dis?" Letting the question fall, rhetorical, he continued, "You always liked dat one best."

"Yeah. It was . . ."

A _tik tak _of metal on metal interrupted her. Both the X-Men looked up. Magneto had entered the room. He had changed his cape and uniform for civilian clothes; in dark slacks and a gray buttoned shirt, he would have looked almost normal to anyone who didn't know him.

Gambit turned deliberately away from him, unwilling to let his unwelcome presence interrupt the conversation. "It was what?" he prompted Kitty.

"It was, um, a present from my grandparents."

"Birthday?"

"Bat mitsvah."

"Indeed?" Magneto asked.

Kitty's head swivelled around to him again. "Yeah," she admitted. "I just kinda wished I'd stuffed it in my pocket on the way out, y'know? Just to have something familiar to tug on, if I've gotta tug on something."

"I owe you ten t'ousand favors, _Petite_. You say de word an' I'll go back an' fetch it for you."

Kitty laughed. "Like you could get back inside without me in a million years."

Gambit felt his competitive spirit rise at this slight on his skill, but he fought it down. She needed to be reassured, not argued with. "S'pose I couldn't."

Magneto imposed himself on the conversation again. "With matters as they stand, I cannot bring your necklace to you either, but perhaps I can provide a stopgap."

He held his hand out over the table. The surface of it rippled and shivered, and a slim wire of naked metal pulled up out of it. The silver line twisted from smoothness into carefully detailed texture . . . the tiny links of a fine chain. With another twitch of his fingers, he pulled a six-pointed star out of the tabletop. He linked it onto the chain and let the whole necklace drop into his palm. With his free hand, he took Kitty's, turned it up, and laid the trinket in the hollow of it.

"I . . . um . . ." Kitty trailed off, absolutely blindsided by the sudden and unexpected gesture of what might, coming from anyone else, almost be termed _kindness_. "Thank you," she finished at last, lamely. "It's really pretty."

"If ever y'decide t'give up evil villianing, could make good money as a jeweler," Gambit deadpanned.

"Indeed. It's a pity there are so few career options for those specializing in sarcasm."

Kitty undid the clasp and slid the necklace underneath her head scarf, but flinched as the muscles of her arm flexed around the IV. "Gambit, could you?"

"It's too small for me t'manage wid gloves on," Gambit said apologetically . . . he was not in a mood to risk his bare hands near her skin.

Magneto fastened it for her. With his hands, not his powers. Gambit felt his eyes narrow a little, involuntarily. "Awfully sentimental dis mornin', ain't ya, Boss?"

"It is a shame to lose such a gift. I hate to see someone robbed of their innocence and their faith so young." He let the scarf drop back over Kitty's shoulders. "I received a pair of gold cuff links at my own bar mitzvah in 1939. I wore them only six months, and never saw them again."

Kitty turned in her chair . . . she'd already snaked one hand under her veil to fiddle with the star charm. "You're Jewish?"

"Wit' a name like Lensherr, you were expectin' Methodist?" asked Gambit.

"How do _you _know his name?"

"I was workin' for him, an' I was nosy an' bored."

"I would expect no less," said Magneto approvingly. "Miss Pryde, after I lost that gift, I saw the race of men do such things that when, many years later, I learned that I was not human, I wept in relief. I would not wish such an experience on my vilest enemy. Hold onto your trinket a while longer."

Kitty's head cocked sideways, her brown eyes studying the face that she'd had so little opportunity to see unshadowed. "But then you stopped hanging out with humans, so you could never see anything different."

"Whereas you chose to live your life surrounded by humans, and look where it's gotten you. All roads seem to have lead to Rome."

"I guess the question is where the road going once it comes out the other side."

Gambit raised an eyebrow. Kitty was quick on her feet this morning. Metaphorically.

Kitty pushed away from the table and stood up, holding onto her iv stand for a little bit of extra stability. "I think I'm done. Thank you . . ." she gestured a little with the hand still holding onto the necklace under the scarf. " . . . for this. I'm gonna . . . gonna see if Liz will let me off this stupid needle."

"Need a hand?" Gambit asked her gently.

"No, I've got it." But her eyes danced away, refusing to meet his.

He reached across and caught her hand. "You all right?"

"Yeah." She looked up and smiled at him, then jerked her head a little towards Magneto. "Ask me again later."

"Okay." He released her hand and watched her leave the room, alert for any sign that she was going to fall over and require catching. Only when she was out of sight around the corner did he turn his attention back to blatantly ignoring Magneto under the guise of eating unspicy chili.

"And are you back in fighting form, now that you've had a chance to clean yourself up?" Magneto asked him.

"I had my face taken off by Colossus and got shot through de ear," Gambit told him, not looking up. "_Fightin' form_ might not be de words I'd use."

"Still, you're on your feet, which is not unimpressive."

"Glad you're impressed."

Magneto pulled out one of the chairs and sat down. Gambit finally raised his eyes, annoyed.

"Someone has to be keeping records on the mutants who are going missing . . . the protesters with nowhere to hide," Magneto told him. "I would guess the FBI. There have to be prisons and guards . . . a paper trail and a money trail. If these could be traced, these people could be found, and freed, and brought to the safety of Avalon. Could you obtain this information?"

"If I _can_ is de wrong question to ask," said Gambit. He ate another mouthful of chili. "So dat's de next mission? Another strike team?"

"This is a private observation that I bring to you as an independent agent. The last time we did things Charles's way, with large teams and information spread everywhere, we nearly lost one of our own. There was a leak."

Gambit nodded. "Had to be. De night of de raid, everybody's usin' live rounds, but by de time we got back to de house, somebody'd got smart. De kid who shot Kitty had a gun loaded wid tranq darts. Half-filled tranq darts, probably, for her to stay awake as long as she did. He knew exactly who an' what he was shootin' at, an' how to bring her down."

"And once she is captured, no one hunts for you or prevents you from leaving with the video files you came for."

"_Ouais_." Gambit scowled. "_Ça m'inquiete._" He let his spoon clatter down into his bowl. "So you come t'me, _alors_?"

"If I am to confide in only one person, best to choose the person who has the most valuable skills. And if there is another such 'leak,' It is convenient to know exactly whom I should kill."

"Very convenient."

"Will you do the job?"

Gambit was silent.

"Name your price, then."

"Stuff yo' price, _sir_," Gambit snapped. "I don' work for you."

"As you choose."

"But I do _work_." Gambit pushed back his chair and stood up. "Gimme what background you got, an' I'll see what I can do."

"I will. And I will take you planetside when you wish to go."

* * *

The two helicopters were still circling above them, sometimes droning off into the distance, sometimes coming roaring overhead. Logan was about three quarters of a mile away from the cabin, along the edge of the lake. It was a fairly narrow body of water, and though it did get deep towards the middle, there was an inlet across from him where the bottom was much shallower. There, the ice had melted, but over the middle of the lake huge chunks of it still floated.

_Red?_

She didn't reply for a second, and when she did, her mental voice sounded distracted. _Yep?_

_Can you check with the kid, ask her where she is?_

_Um . . . yeah, sure. Just a second._

_What are you doing over there?_

_Nothing. _There was a brief, dishonest pause. _She's signalling you. Take a look._

On the other side of the water, Logan saw one of the uppermost branches of a huge pine tree shake heavily up and down, dislodging a few clumps of snow from its needles.

Good. That gave him a good angle to bring the chopper in on. One of them droned past again, too far away. He sat down and unlaced his boots. Nothing was more miserable than wet boots in March.

The other chopper swung over again. Logan stood up, barefoot, shrugging his jacket off his shoulders. Yeah, that one would work, if he timed it just right . . . He popped a claw and stepped into the freezing water, maneuvering through the tree roots and drooping boughs that trailed into the edge of the lake. The thick tree cover blocked the sunlight for about four yards, so by the time he felt the warmth of it hit the back of his neck, the water was up to his waist.

He raised his fist and angled the claw, catching the sun on the gleaming blade. The beam of light shot straight up into the air, then angled low across the trees until it shot straight through the front window of the helicopter.

They'd seen it; the tail swung around, pointing the nose straight at him. Logan waded back into the dim cover of the trees. The chopper came thrumming toward him, dipping too low over the treetops . . .

_What's she waiting for? C'mon, Kid, go **now **. . ._

He could hear her attack scream echo across the lake as Laura launched herself from her hiding place. Logan felt the corner of his mouth twitch up in subdued admiration . . . that girl could jump like nothing he'd ever seen. She flew what seemed an impossible distance, arms spread wide, then dug both fists of claws into the underbelly of the helicopter, just below the tail. The chopper reeled in the air. It was a small enough craft that her weight threw off its balance, and whoever was piloting seemed unsure if he wanted to shake her off or tip sideways so that one of the soldiers inside could get a half-decent shot at her. Laura swung for a moment like a snake clamped onto a hand, then swung both feet up and slammed her toe-claws through the metal. A few more well-placed stabs, and the helicopter was diving, swirling madly out of control and pouring smoke from the gaping holes in its surface.

She'd overshot it. Instead of landing in the shallows, where it would have been easy to recover weapons and gear from the crashed chopper, the whole mess went plowing into the middle of the lake.

Logan snarled as he waded back out into the water. "Stupid, stupid kid! Ain't got the brains God gave sheep . . ." He knew that she'd actually done very well—even an uber-trained superweapon needed to learn from experience, which she simply hadn't had much time to do in her young life—but complaining was a standard defense when plowing into something he didn't want to do, like diving into ice slush to fish SHIELD personnel out of his lake. He filled his lungs and threw himself forward, setting out for the wreck in a fast, hard front crawl.

The helicopter was already sinking. Laura had freed herself from the wreck, and as he craned his head up he saw her surface, dragging a high-powered sniper rifle with her. The sniper to whom the rifle had belonged was bobbing alongside the craft, searching for a way back in.

Logan swam straight past Laura, ignoring her for the moment, and grabbed the frantic soldier. "How many men were with you?" he demanded, swiping his wet hair awkwardly out of his eyes.

"Three! Three more . . ."

A voice sounded from beyond the sinking craft. "Me and Richards are over here!"

"Where's Kleinman?"

Logan swung around towards Laura. "You see anybody else come up?"

She shook her head. "I just grabbed—"

He didn't stick around to hear, or care about, what she had grabbed. He just lunged up out of the water as hard as he could and sank straight down, as fast as only someone lugging a hundred-pound metal skeleton could.

He flipped himself as soon as he'd sunk to a level with the chopper's open door and squirmed inside, fighting to see through the dark, murky water. The crash had stirred up a lot of sediment from the bottom of the lake, and the particles stung at his eyes. In the pilot's seat of the plane, still wrestling with his jammed harness, was the missing fourth crewman. Claws made short work of the tough nylon straps, and in less than ninety seconds both Logan and his rescued pursuer were in the clear air again.

Unfortunately, they were right under the second helicopter.

The blades of it churned the calm water into foam around them. A few yards away from him, Laura was struggling to keep her head out of the spray—not because the waves were that high, but because she was running out of the energy necessary to keep her own adamantium-weighted frame afloat in the water.

"Let me guess!" Logan shouted up at the helicopter. "Surrender Dorothy!"

The side hatch swung open, and a black-uniformed operative leaned out of it. "I've got clearance from Colonel Fury to drug you both into Oz and then fish you off the bottom of this lake, so I'd stop smart-alecking and start surrendering if I were you."

Logan was combing through his options. He had some potential hostages down here in the water with him, but they were useless as long as he was unwilling to let them die . . . which SHIELD knew perfectly well was the case. Laura had a waterlogged rifle that wouldn't fire, and they both had claws that the chopper would stay well clear of until they were unconscious. And neither of them could keep swimming for much longer.

And then a second dawn broke at the edge of the sky.

Behind the helicopter, streaks of orange and red licked above the treeline. They thickened and multiplied, crawling up through the air like claws, and Logan felt a wave of heat wash up against his face. It was fire, enormous and ravenous, arching up across the lake and over the chopper, spreading wide like wings vast enough to blot out the sun.

Every alarm in Logan's brain or body went off at the same time. He had never in his life seen anything like the fiery apparition looming over them, but something way down in his gut screamed that whatever this thing was, it was _BAD. _Not 'it's-going-to-kill-you' bad—way beyond that. Off-the-scale bad.

And it was on top of the spot where he'd left Jean.

He barely noticed the helicopter veering wildly out of the way of the rippling heat . . . had not a second's attention to spare for the four SHIELD agents in the water, and barely a second to check that Laura was following him . . . he just struck out for the nearest point of shoreline. It was covered with thick brush, thicker than what he'd come through on the other side, but what he couldn't dodge, he cut through, and if anything slashed open his feet or his skin, he didn't feel it.

He'd lost Fox in this place, in water . . . and he was going to lose Jean in fire, before he'd even had a chance to understand what had happened or to raise a hand in her protection, just like before . . .

He could see her now, standing at the water's edge, both hands raised to heaven as if in worship. She turned to him, letting her arms fall, a smile on her face, and her eyes were clear and bright and shining with excitement. "Did you see that? Did you see what I did?"

He grabbed her face in both hands, barely remembering in time that he ought to retract his claws, and all but devoured her face with his eyes, frantically seeking a burn or an injury or some indication of trauma.

"I knew I could TK fire, I've done it before, but I never _expanded_ it like that! That was huge! And it was just like the extended telepathy thing, I just had to control my body's reactions to the stress, the adrenalin and the lactic acid and stuff like that, and I feel great, I'm not even tired!" She stopped talking long enough to catch her breath, slowly realizing that she was the only person in this conversation who was excited about this. "Logan? What's wrong?"

His hand snaked up to comb her hair back off her temple, to be absolutely sure that there was no bloodied wound hidden underneath. She was fine. Unmarked, unworried. She was fine. She was fine, she was fine. His heart rate dropped out of the turbo gear it had been in, so he could differentiate between individual beats again.

Heedless of prudence or propriety, he pulled her tight against him, cradling her head in the curve of his shoulder and body crushed safe against his chest. Her ribs strained against his grip as she struggled for breath, but for a long moment he couldn't make himself let go.

_Logan? _She didn't make any attempt to get away from him, even though he was dripping wet and freezing cold, and her hands reached reflexively around him to cling to the damp fabric that covered his back.

"Don't ever," he insisted, gripping her tighter for emphasis, "_ever_ scare me like that again." He'd meant it to be a command, but his voice had no edge of anger to it. He sounded startlingly vulnerable, even to himself.

Her voice, when she gathered the breath to reply, was no more than a penitent whisper. "I didn't mean to scare you."

He released her a little, enough to check her over again for some overlooked injury. Shining traces of moisture gleamed along her bottom eyelids—his reaction had startled her almost to tears, but her expression was composed and calm. She looked much better than he felt. Something was squeezing painfully inside his chest: the wrenching awareness of what it would do to him if anything were ever to happen to this woman.

He heard a rustle of bracken and the quick footfalls of someone with a short stride, and knew without looking that Laura had caught up to him. Still trying to convince his arms that they needed to let Jean go, he turned his head to check that the younger girl was all right. She was as soaked as he was, her heavy breaths misting in the air before her face, but her eyes were wide with a sort of frightened fascination as she surveyed Logan and Jean. Her head cocked sideways, a mannerism that he was coming to recognize as an indicator that she was struggling to understand some new thing.

_It's love,_ he slowly realized. He hated to think the word when Jean was so close to him, the scent of her filling his head, but that's what it was. _She's read about love in books, but she's never seen it, not with her own eyes._

Then reason returned to her throne, reminding him sharply that he was _not_ supposed to be holding onto Scott Summers's girlfriend the way he currently was, and he let Jean go and stepped away. (Too late; the scent of her was in his blood now, and she was going to haunt his dreams when he fell asleep again.) "They'll circle back around," he announced, suddenly all business, "and pretty soon after that we'll have half of SHIELD pinning us down. We've got to get out, _now_, so are you coming or what?"

Jean was holding her breath. Logan was trying not to think about what he ought to do if Laura bolted. That wasn't a decision he was ready to make . . . not with so little time to think.

Then her proud, sharp chin jerked down as she nodded. It was only a little nod, but it was decisive, and it was enough. "I'll go with you."

* * *

Author's Notes:

A veritable plethora of French!

_Assis-toi et mange_. _Henri, cherche ce plat au côté du frigo: _Sit down and eat. Henri, get that dish next to the fridge.

_J'ai faim! _I'm hungry!

_Fais-la alors: _So do it (say grace) then.

_Il y a du dessert: _There's dessert.

_Du thé, alors: _Some tea, then.

_S'il a apris finalement de suivre des instructions, c'est un miracle de Dieu_. _Peut-etre il va vivre jusqu'a son vignt-cinquième anniversaire. _If he's finally learned to follow instructions, it's a miracle from God. Maybe he'll live until his twenty-fifth birthday.

And from Gambit:

_C'est ça: _That's it/you're right/that is indeed the state of affairs.

_Ça m'inquiete: _That worries me.

And there is plenty more where all that came from.

As always, thank you all so much for your reviews and encouragement! Your support is invaluable as I continue to work through this extremely difficult and demanding project.

Updates on what's going on with Scott to come next chapter, cross my heart.

Seri


	25. Chapter 25

Chapter 25

* * *

Rogue looked up from her spot on the sofa as Bobby walked in, and raised her finger to indicate that she'd be off the phone in a second. "Yep. Okay. Be careful and we'll see ya on Thursday. Hang in there." She hit the 'End' button on the cordless phone and set it down on the coffee table, slipping her list of names and information back into her pocket. "Memere said Ah could use the phone," she explained, not wanting him to think she'd just made herself at home and started making long-distance calls without permission.

"Y'kin cover it in peanut butter an' eat it, for all I care," he told her, smiling. He dropped down on the other end of the couch and kicked his feet up onto the table. "Dat line's secured, encrypted, an' tied up so many ways you could probably call de president an' he couldn't trace it. Never tried, though." He sighed and let his head loll back. "And yet I gotta send secret codes through half a dozen friends of friends of friends of friends t'get five minutes' conversation wid my own ex-sister-in-law, who lives not fifteen miles from dis house."

"That's where yeh took off to?" Rogue asked.

"Yep. Callin' in favors an' leavin' breadcrumbs. She'll know what's up, an' if she's interested in talkin' t'you, she'll meet us tomorrow morning. Den we get you on a plane, an' you're off t'meet Kurt in Chicago. An' when you get back t'Remy, y'kin tell him dat we done take good care of his girl."

_His girl. _Remy's girl. Rogue felt her head swivel away from Bobby, involuntarily, like he'd hit her in slow motion. The title should have made her glow with pride. Instead, it stung, like the name on the passport had stung. Worse. That had only been her hurt . . . this was a lie to a man who trusted her, and who loved her, for his brother's sake. And he'd been out all afternoon navigating the minefield that was Guild politics and probably asking favors he was going to have to pay back later, because she was _Remy's girl._

Except that she wasn't.

She couldn't . . . could _not _. . . say it out loud. That was too confrontational, too real. But every second that she sat there in silence, she was lying by omission—taking Bobby's help under false pretenses. And Remy's good, honest, loyal brother didn't deserve that from her.

"Bobby?"

"_Ouais?_"

"Ah don't know how to thank you for—"

"Hey, I told you—"

"Bobby . . . shut up. And Ah mean that in the nicest possible way. Just . . ." She held up her hand like a mouth, pinching her fingers 'shut' against her thumb. "Ah need to tell yeh somethin'."

Bobby obediently snapped his jaw shut and drew an X across his lips, offering her his undivided attention and the promise that he wouldn't interrupt.

"It's just . . . somethin' happened. And Ah shoulda told ya when Ah called from Tennessee, but Ah didn't have nobody else to go to, and Ah _needed _to get this done for him. No, he's fine . . ." She'd seen Bobby's mouth open again involuntarily, as her cryptic babbling made him worry again for his brother's safety. "He's not hurt or anythin', it's just . . ." She curled herself up, pulling her knees to her chest and scrubbing her hands over her face as though she could hide behind them. "We had a fight," she admitted, nearly choking on the word. An awkward laugh forced its way out of her throat. "We had one rip-snorter of a fight . . ."

"Did'je hit him?" Bobby asked.

Rogue shook her head.

"Well, why _not_?"

This elicited a genuine, if unsteady, giggle. "Wasn't that kind'a fight. Ah mean, we fight all the time, normally . . ."

"Cuz he's a pain in de butt. I gotcha."

" . . . but this one was different. He's angry. Really, really angry. Not at _me_, but . . . at the situation. At the people that chased us outta the Institute. At Professor Xavier for tellin' us we shouldn't fight back. At . . ." she stopped, glancing up at Bobby awkwardly. "At the humans." Well, _that _line had sure made her sound like a space alien. "And, uh, Ah got in his face about it, and he got in mah face about it, an' everybody yelled some stuff that maybe they shouldn't have, and when Ah touched him, somethin' . . . broke."

"Arm?"

"No. But the way we can touch, by absorbin' each other . . . you know about that, right?"

"Oh, yeah. He's told me. Gloated at me, actch'ly."

"Ah guess that . . . balance . . . was more fragile than we thought it was. It hurt so bad . . . like who he _was, _and who Ah _was_, didn't fit together anymore. Like he changed into this angry, violent _thing _that just burned out mah insides. So the long an' short of it is that . . . Ah don't . . . Ah think that maybe Ah'm not . . . _his girl _ . . . anymore."

Bobby didn't answer. Rogue kept her eyes on her knees until she couldn't stand it anymore, then glanced up.

"Permission t'talk now?" Bobby asked.

Rogue sighed, a reluctant smile emerging onto her face. "Permission granted."

Bobby 'unlocked' his mouth and sat up straight, as though about to make an important and solemn announcement. "He is my brother. You've saved his life. You are entitled to food and phones. _Point._"

Her smile blossomed a bit more. She was beginning to understand why, despite family estrangement and the fact that they weren't blood relatives, Remy would drop everything and charge into the jaws of death to save this man without a second thought.

Once this had been established, he slumped back into the sofa cushions and pursed his lips in thought. "Oh, _DB_ . . . what we gonna do 'bout you? He was always one a dem 'don't get mad, get even' types . . . but when he wanted t'get even, I always just got de hell outta his way."

"Yeah, well, Ah cain't get out of his way. Ah'm an X-Man. Gettin' in the way's lahk, mah job."

"Oh, _je sais_. If you don' mind my sayin' so, you got a lot more balls dan me. I could never get in Remy's face about anythin' . . . I just let him fight wid _Pere. _But you, Rogue . . . you're somethin' special."

Rogue rolled her eyes, scoffing.

"Hey, I'm serious. You got this vibe dat makes him want t'protect you, but at de same time you'll tell him where to stick it and turn around an' walk away. If he got half a brain, he'll t'ink long an' hard before lettin' his pride kick somebody like you outta his life. An' if he don't, wanna go out?"

Rogue laughed outright. "You serious?"

Bobby laughed, too. "I wish, but nah. Gettin' married next year anyway."

"Really?"

"Really really."

"To who?"

"Seattle guildmaster's niece."

"Oh." Rogue stopped, wary of saying the wrong thing in a peculiar and sensitive social situation. "Is she nice?"

"Yeah, seems to be."

"Is it . . ."

"Arranged? Yeah."

"Oh."

"'S all right. Cain't turn out any worse'n Remy's."

Rogue sighed, acknowledging and accepting the weirdness. "True enough."

They sat in silence for a minute, listening to the birds outside.

"Do yeh think he'll come around?" Rogue asked at length. "When he's had some time to cool down a little bit?"

Bobby shook his head. "I dunno. Hope so. I been watchin' de news . . . keepin' up wid what's happening in New York . . . an I'm plenty mad, too. So I understand where he's comin' from."

Without meaning to, Rogue found herself watching that night again in her mind. The salty gunpowder-smell in the wet, cold air, the confused shouting of her teammates resonating in her head, the soldiers that guarded the missile launcher looking her in the eye and opening fire. Where would she be if they hadn't come that night? Probably curled up on the sofa in the den, studying for her Japanese midterm. And Remy would be taking notes all over his electrical engineering textbook in pen . . . it had cost over a hundred dollars, a price that he found absolutely offensive, and he'd started a campaign to get his money's worth out of it by using it as a notebook and day planner as well. It wasn't much to ask, really, was it? A quiet afternoon with friends and homework, under a roof that she could call her own. Who was Senator Graydon Creed, to decide that she didn't deserve to have that because of the X-factor encoded in her DNA? Where did he get off?

The words came out . . . and if he'd heard them, Professor Xavier would have given her one of those _looks, _the ones that were understanding and disappointed at the same time . . . but they came out all the same_. _"Me, too."

* * *

A rush of air and the reek of sulphur announced that Gambit had company. He sat back from the computer . . . which had been straining his ultra-sensitive red eyes in any case . . . and twisted his neck to feel the vertebrae pop. "Hey, Blue."

"Got a second?" Kurt asked. He'd appeared on the desk, in the half-crouched position that only he could possibly have found comfortable, diabolic tail twisting absently across the tabletop. "Vhat are you even doing?"

"Workin'. Magneto wants to do a bust-out a'de mutants de goverment's been lockin' up."

"Cool." Kurt leaned over to take a look at the screen. "What did ze Professor say?"

"Nothin' yet. He been busy. New kids t'train an' all, so none of 'em blows de station up."

"Oh . . . yeah." Kurt backed off and swung his feet off the side of the desk. "So what happened vit Rogue?"

Gambit went very deliberately back to the computer. "Not'in I'm talkin' over wid you."

"Hey, man. She's my little sister."

"_Older_ sister."

"And she's been all kinds'a messed up zese past few days."

Gambit snorted contemptuously. " Could dat be because Uncle Sam's finest just tore up her house an' shot her in de gut? Nah, she'd take dat in stride. She's _tough. _So it must be somet'in' I done."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Defensive much? I just saw zat somesing was up, and wanted to know if I could help."

Gambit sighed. Defensive much, indeed. He had to be at the end of his rope if he was snapping at Kurt Wagner, of all people.

"_Desolé_," he offered, and although the apology was muttered, it was genuine.

"Don't vorry about it. Ve're all on edge zis week. But I'm meeting up vith Rogue again at ze pickup tomorrow, so if you vanted me to tell her anysing for you . . ."

_Like what? _Gambit asked himself, letting the bitterness circle inside his head. _Like 'I love you'? She already got dat message._

Kurt let the silence drag for a moment. When it became evident to both of them that Gambit had nothing to say, he finally relented and twisted around to the computer again. Pulling up the first document he came across, he typed a number. "Zis is ze phone we're carrying. Call her. Talk to her. Please?"

"She don't wanna talk t'me."

"Um . . . yes, she does. A lot. Just call, okay?"

Gambit sighed and nodded . . D. more to appease Kurt, whom he liked, than because he really thought that a phone conversation with Rogue was going to help anything. "Thanks, Blue."

"Vell, it's a trade. For a favor. Hank's got zis long . . . _long _. . . list of mutants for us to track down. Mostly friends and family of ze people we've already evacuated. So vhen I go back down planetside, I might not be back for a good long time. And Amanda . . ."

Gambit smiled. "You may look like a demon straight outta Hell, Kurt Wagner, but you de biggest softie I know."

"I just don't vant her to be alone up here. And I'm vorried about Magneto."

"He won't hurt her."

"He _said_ so. But I'd sleep better if you were keeping an eye on her for me, just in case."

Gambit nodded his understanding. "I'll keep her safe. _T'inquiete pas._ Magneto'll listen t'me."

"Are you sure?"

Gambit spared a glance for the computer screen, full of research he was doing at the supervillain's suggestion. "Pretty sure."

"Thanks."

"Don' mention it."

* * *

Jean had been worried about how they were going to recover Velocity, but the process turned out to be remarkably straightforward once they'd wrestled the SHIELD chopper out of the water and got her going again. The waterlogged chopper crew tried to escape into the woods, but Logan rounded them up, lest they end up lost and starving in the middle of the wilderness. But it was only out of the goodness of his heart, he was careful to point out, because Nick Fury _already_ owed him big time.

The agents that had been left to guard Velocity were already unnerved by the fact that one of the chopper teams was no longer responding to radio hails. They were further unnerved by Laura landing on the windshield and dragging her claws across the glass, teeth bared and eyes wild. After that, they were fairly open to negotiation. The fact that Jean had remotely disabled all their weapons helped a bit, too.

Since Logan had nothing against SHIELD in general, they just left both teams of agents tied up with a few layers of duct tape, inside their own chopper where they'd be warm and reasonably comfortable until somebody found them. He did "borrow" enough fuel off them to fill Velocity's tanks, but Jean figured this was only fair and did not raise any objection.

It was a relief to be in their own helicopter again. After days in those haunted woods that were so thick with Logan's memories, the sparse little craft felt as safe as her bedroom at home. It was _her _space, full of _her _memories. Logan took the pilot's seat, leaving Jean to watch out for and take care of any SHIELD craft in pursuit. Thankfully, there were none-they'd taken out the team before anyone could raise an alarm.

"Only one downside," Logan observed as Velocity's jet engine settled into the steady hum of level flight. "I don't get to see the look on Fury's face when he sees what we did to his guys."

"I'm sure someone will take a picture for you," Jean told him, smiling against her better judgment. Her attention swung back to Laura, who was circling the cramped interior, taking note of every detail of her flying prison. "I'd better get in touch with the Professor and find out where we can hitch a ride back to Avalon." She reached for the Cerebro headgear, but Logan shook his head.

"We're not going back to Avalon."

"What? What do you mean, we're not going back? Where else would we go?" There was nowhere else _to_ go. Everywhere she'd ever known was barred to them.

"We're not going back right now," he amended. _First, we've got to get Laura somewhere safe._

_ But SHIELD's never going to find her on Avalon._

_SHIELD's not what I'm worried about. Magneto doesn't need another bendy-toy. We're getting her well out of harm's way before she can get caught in the crossfire of whatever he's planning to start. Out of the country, off the continent, and under the radar._

_ So . . . where? _She checked Velocity's heading. _West . . . back to Japan?_

_ Back to Japan, _Logan affirmed.

_To the monastery, where you took Rogue?_

She felt him chuckle, though his expression didn't change. _There's a plan. No . . . the monks are peaceful people, which is all well and good in a perfect world, but if SHIELD ever finds her they're not going to be able to do jack to stop them taking her. She needs the protection of somebody who can stand up to Nick Fury._

_ And let me guess . . . you know a guy._

_ I know a lot of people._

"You're talking," Laura accused them, her voice hostile and suspicious.

Jean swung around, embarrassed. "I'm sorry . . . I forgot my manners. We were just talking about where we're going next."

"How's your Japanese?" Logan asked her.

"I don't speak Japanese."

He hmphed, amused.

"Only Spanish, Arabic, Korean, Mandarin, and Farsi."

Logan turned around and half stared, half glared at her. Jean knew, from years of living in the same household, that he was comfortable in French, German, Japanese and Russian—the languages of world wars and cold wars, a generation or more ago. Laura had been bred and trained for another age, and in it, her skills trumped his.

"Well, you might want to start, because we're headed for Tokyo." He turned back to the flight controls, annoyed at being shown up. Jean couldn't help smiling at his displeasure—it wasn't often he was beaten at anything, and she had a feeling it might be good for him. Laura caught the smile and watched it, her head cocked sideways in mingled suspicion and curiosity.

Jean turned in her chair, back to the controls of the helicopter. The Cerebro helmet sat, gleaming, at the top of the control panel. She reached for it, then drew her hand back. Who would she call, and what would she say? Everything she'd learned up here, about Logan and his past, was too private for her to share with Scott, particularly via glorified telephone call. And Logan seemed determined to get Laura out of the country before anyone connected with Magneto could know about her, so Jean's lips were sealed on that topic. She wouldn't even be able to say when they'd be returning to rejoin the team. She let her hands rest on her knees and looked out the window, away from the helmet. She'd call when they were on their way back. It couldn't be more than a couple of days, could it? A couple of days wouldn't make any difference.

The endless trees flashed by underneath them, Velocity skimming over land that it would have taken them days to cross on foot. The undulations of the land were hypnotic, and somehow Jean's tired brain was lulled by it. She watched the ground go by for much longer than she meant to, until quite suddenly the ground was gone and nothing but blue ocean and darkening sky stretched off into the distance.

She snapped back to reality and looked around. Logan looked up, startled from his own reverie by her sudden movement. She checked over her shoulder for Laura.

The filthy, bone-thin little creature was curled up on the floor at the back of the cabin, her matted hair hanging over her face. Her chest rose and fell in slow, measured beats.

"She's asleep," Jean whispered, and relief flooded through every fiber of her body. It felt like shrugging off a heavy backpack. "She's sleeping."

"Yeah," Logan agreed, and she saw one of those rare, startlingly gentle smiles tease at the corner of his mouth as he looked at the exhausted girl. "She sure is."

* * *

_"Reveille-toi, cherie. C'est l'heure."_

Rogue responded to the whispered voice with a string of incoherent muttered syllables. She broke the rhythm of her breathing with one reflexive almost-gasp of a breath and squeezed her eyes shut before popping them open and blinking. Too early. _So _too early. It was still dark. She took a second to remember where she was, and to figure out that the dark green gleams above her were Memere's eyes. What first seemed to be silence suddenly clarified into a cacophonous chorus of crickets and frogs outside her window.

_"Il faut que tu t'envas bientot," _Memere told her. _"Tu peut te doucher, et il y a du petit dej. Ca va?"_

Rogue shoved herself up against the headboard, reaching under the stripes that overhung her face to scrub at her eyes. "Ah don't understand a word you're sayin'," she admitted. "Too early for French."

Memere smiled indulgently. "_Peut-tu le prendre de moi?" _she asked, offering a cupped hand. At first, Rogue thought the older woman was offering to help her up out of bed, but when she hesitated Memere touched the extended palm with the middle finger of her other hand, communicating by gesture what she wanted Rogue to do.

Rogue hesitated . . . this early in the morning, when she was this disoriented, would it be safe? The last thing in the world she wanted to do was hurt this kind woman. But, she reflected, the first time she'd ever managed this trick had been a dark dreamy moment like this, when she was still relaxed and open. Ignoring her gloves where they lay on her nightstand, she brushed her finger across the hollow of Memere's hand.

For a second, she was surprised that everything stayed dark . . . the smell of the house unconsciously said _Remy_ to her with every breath she took, and absorbing Remy always made the darkness light up with his enhanced vision. Then she felt the warm energy rushing up her arm and into her mouth. She pulled her hand back and flexed her jaw, running her tongue over her teeth and the roof of her mouth like she'd just eaten something sticky. She could feel the new language overlaying what her lips and tongue and throat already knew how to do. "_A-t-il march__é_?" she asked, and the meaning was crystal clear inside her head.

"Sounds like it did," said Memere. "Dat's a very strange feelin', dat is."

"Well, you're just lucky Ah'm as good at it as Ah am, or it would have been a three-day coma feeling," said Rogue. "Now what did you say?"

"I said you have to get yourself outta bed and get washed up an' dressed an' get some breakfast in you, 'cause you an' Henri gotta get yourselves gone well before first light. Feelin' okay?"

"Yeah. Just sleepy. And . . ." She took another deep breath through her nose. "This house smells like him," she admitted, not bothering to specify who she was talking about.

"You miss him?" Memere asked.

Rogue laughed a little at the deceptive simplicity of the question. "Yeah," she admitted. "Ah miss him a lot."

"So do I," Memere told her.

Rogue smiled, sympathetic and sad. "It's sure been a long time since you've seen him, huh?"

"A long time," Memere agreed. "I miss how dis house used t'be full of laughter an' yelling an' breakin' things back when he an' Henri were little. He's a little hellion, but he brings so much life in wid him."

Rogue grinned. "What was he like, when he was little?"

"Filthy," said Memere. She smiled, too. "Henri was about five, a little older, when de doctor told Christine she wouldn't be havin' any more babies. She was heartbroken. Just drew in on herself. She still talked to me, an' she held onto dat little boy like her last prayer, but she just drifted off into de shadows. Guildmaster was half outta his mind wid worry about her. Worshiped her, he did. It wasn't a love match between dem—political, just like all de big guild families had back in de day—but dat just made him all de crazier t'make her happy. Used to say she was de finest t'ing he ever stole. Den one day he drags home dis wild, diseased little creature, all broken teeth an' open sores . . . an' dose eyes! Screamed my head off when I saw dose eyes. Thought he had plague or somet'in'. But his bein' in de house woke Christine up, somehow. Jean-Luc had just brought him home as an experiment, 'cause any five-year-old street thing dat could pinch his wallet an' be two blocks away quick as blinkin' had potential, he said. But before anyone knew what was happenin', Christine had just latched onto him. And turned out he needed lovin' as much as Christine needed somet'in' to love."

"Ah cain't wrap mah brain around him bein' five. Guess it seems like anybody so convinced of his own cool shoulda just appeared outta nowhere at fifteen."

Memere laughed, then reached into her pocket. "Dis is for you two."

It was a wallet-size photograph, color, but yellowed with age-a posed portrait. A woman with large dark eyes looked back at Rogue, her expression serene and composed. Her light brown hair was gathered in a formal arrangement at the back of her head, the better to show off the earrings that dangled along her neck. She looked so calm, so graceful . . . not happy, specifically, but not unhappy either. She looked in control, on top of it, as Rogue could only dream of being.

"Dat was taken before she got sick," Memere told her. "Thought you might like t'see it, an' he might like t'have it."

Rogue looked at the picture for one more minute, then set it on her gloves. "Ah promise I'll get it to him."

Memere smiled and squeezed her knee. "Git yourself dressed now."

All too soon, Rogue was washed, dressed, and fed, the photograph protected by a ziploc bag and slipped into her leg pocket. One last hug from Memere, and she was out the front door, following Bobby down to the dock at the edge of the island.

The trip back to the mainland was dreamy, still too dark to be called morning. Bobby didn't ask her any questions, letting them ride in silence all the way to the garage.

"Where are we goin'?" she asked at last, as they climbed out of the boat and Bobby fished out his car keys.

"Neutral territory. There's a place in de _Quartier_ where Pinchers an' Rippers is both welcome enough, an' fights ain't allowed. Remy probably wouldn't'a told you about it—"

"Delphine's?" Rogue asked.

Bobby paused with the key in the lock and stared at her. "You know about Delphine's?"

"Sure. They got a franchise location up in Westchester."

"Please be messin' wid me."

"Of course I'm messin' with you! Remy and me went there when we was lookin' for you. Ah like Delphine. She's nice."

"She's smart, is what she is." Bobby slipped into the driver's seat and unlocked the passenger door. "She runs de best house in de state, an' can lay down de law because of it. Nobody makes trouble for Delphine . . . dey risk gettin' dey people banned. So it's a safe place for meetin's like dis. It was de best place I could think of, but if you're not okay with it . . ."

"Nah, I'm fine. No worries here." Rogue swung into the passenger seat and buckled her seat belt.

"You sure?"

"If Ah was gonna freak out about somethin' this week, Ah got a lot better things to choose from, believe me."

"Right," Bobby agreed, snickering. They pulled out of the garage and started up the long, rough road back towards New Orleans.

"When we get close," Bobby instructed, "Ah'm gonna drop you off and swing back in twenty minutes. That gonna be enough time?"

"You're not coming in with me?"

"The fewer fingerprints I got on this mess, the better for everybody. I'd back you up if I could, but I got de Guild to think about, too."

Rogue nodded. "Ah gotcha. Yeah, twenty minutes should be plenty."

She'd never been in the front door of Delphine's . . . Remy preferred the back entrance. The double doors were heavy, ornate, and old-fashioned, with long, heavily frosted panes of glass stretching from the top to waist level. Rogue stopped, took a deep breath, and rapped her knuckles against the wood.

There were footsteps from within the house, then it swung open without the slightest creak of protest. "Rogue."

"Hi, Delphine."

The woman who looked at her across the threshold was much more composed than the just-rolled-out-of-bed creature Rogue had seen last time she'd come to New Orleans. Delphine was dressed, in brown business slacks and a loose silk blouse, and topaz-studded combs held up the waves of her long brown hair. She looked every inch the professional, which was impressive at this hour of the morning. "Wow," Rogue said, impressed. "You musta got up earlier than Ah did."

"Haven't been to bed yet," Delphine corrected. "We haven't quite wrapped up business for the night. Come along through, and keep your voice down."

Rogue nodded and followed Delphine into the house. She resolutely tried not to think about the 'business' that hadn't been wrapped up yet. The first time she'd come here, she'd been under Remy's protection, and everyone had treated her with extreme care, as though she would freak out at any second at the thought of setting foot in an honest-to-goodness brothel. She was here on her own now, not as Remy's girl, but as an X-Man with a job to do. She didn't have the luxury of being squeamish anymore.

Delphine took her to an enclosed parlor at the side of the house, where the windows were carefully covered in thick crimson curtains. The room was almost baroque, all heavy furniture upholstered in rich reds and browns. The room had a fireplace, and the fire inside it was thinking about calling it quits for the night. There was a faint but noticeable scent in the air, a mix of woodsmoke, complex perfumes, and tobacco.

"We saw what happened to your house," Delphine told her as she swung the parlor door closed. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah, me too," Rogue acknowledged. "And, um, the coat you let me borrow got left behind in all the fuss. Ah'm sorry."

Delphine smiled. "Well, government issue thou art, and unto government issue thou shalt return, I guess. That's life. You get much use out of it?"

"Oh, yeah. Been wearing it practically every day. It's my favorite."

"That's good to hear."

Rogue looked around in vain for a clock somewhere in the room. "Ah haven't got too much time . . . is Belladonna here?"

"She should be here any minute," Delphine assured her. "There was one thing I'd like to ask you about before she gets here, though."

"What's that?"

Delphine crossed the room to another door and eased it open. "Come in," she ordered someone out of sight.

A girl, younger than Rogue, came shuffling shyly into the room. Her hair was dark blonde, and had the ragged, uncertain look of trying to grow out after a drastic cutting. Her eyes were too big for her face, and had a hungry look to them, but despite all that she was still quite pretty.

"This is Alyssa," Delphine told Rogue. "She's only been with us about four months. Go ahead and show her, hon."

Alyssa swallowed nervously, glancing up at Rogue with trepidation. She pursed her lips a little, concentrating.

Rogue felt something blaze inside her: white-hot rage, directionless and consuming. She felt her heart race and blood rush into her face. Then, as quickly as it had hit her, it was gone, replaced with perfect, abiding calm. Only falling asleep in Remy's arms had she ever felt so safe, so whole. The sensation drained away as quickly as the fury had, leaving her dazed.

Delphine put an arm around Alyssa's shoulders and looked to Rogue, her eyebrows raised in a silent question.

"Wow," said Rogue. "That's new. What would you even call that? Emotipathy?" She gave her head a little shake to clear it and took a deep breath. "That's an amazing gift you have, Alyssa."

"They're saying on the news that failure to register's punishable by twenty thousand dollar fines and something like four years, maximum security," said Delphine, and the question that lingered at the end of her sentence was unspoken, but palpable.

Rogue shook her head. "Don't let her register. Get her on a plane to Chicago, and my people'll take her someplace safe." She recited the time and location of the pickup.

"You hear that?" Delphine asked the frightened girl, whose eyes were now bright with nervous tears. "Go pack up your things."

"I'll lose my slot if I leave," Alyssa protested, her voice hardly more than a choked whisper.

"You haven't broken any rules, so your slot's still yours. We'll keep it for you. Now go on and do as you're told."

Alyssa nodded and ducked out the way she'd come.

"She started doing that thing to the customers about six weeks ago," Delphine told Rogue, once the door was shut. "I wasn't sure what to do with her. Things got out of hand with the government, so we've just been having her lie low for now."

"She been getting headaches, anything like that?"

"A bit. I figured it was just the stress."

"That, and power overload sometimes causes headaches if you don't know how to channel it. Professor Xavier will be able to help her focus—"

Another knock on the door cut her off. Delphine went to answer it, then returned leading the woman that Rogue had come all the way across the country to see.

The one time in her life she'd seen Belladonna Boudreaux, she'd been terrified of her. She was a trained assassin, a telepath, possibly the closest thing to supermodel-beautiful Rogue had ever seen in real life . . . and Gambit's ex-wife, just to top things off. Rogue had been frightened of her on so many levels . . . scared she'd hurt Gambit, scared he still loved her, scared she'd want revenge on whoever had replaced her in his life. Rogue had felt young, naive, inexperienced, and ugly, standing in the shadow of such a woman as that.

This was so different. Belladonna was still heartbreakingly beautiful, with her long hair whipped back into a ponytail that fell down her back in one perfect golden coil. She, like Delphine, was dressed as though this were a business meeting, in a tailored suit and pencil skirt, and the kind of heels that an assassin could no doubt think of all kinds of creative uses for. She had a long cream coat on over the whole ensemble, plenty heavy enough to keep out the early-morning chill. And Rogue, in her plain jeans and long-sleeved t-shirt, without makeup or adornment, felt no intimidation. There was just a strange mix of solidarity and pity . . . at the end of the day, they were just two women, faced with rough choices and broken hearts.

"Threw you out, did he?" were the first words out of Bella's mouth.

Rogue didn't flinch. Thinking about Remy hurt, of course, but not for the reasons Belladonna thought. What she did feel was a sudden twinge of embarrassment. Bella was his ex, Delphine his very old friend who also happened to be the city's most respected prostitute. An unhelpful part of Rogue's mind was suddenly remembering Remy's kisses, the feel of his hands, the way he seemed to know sensitive spots on her body she hadn't even realized were there, and was wondering just how much these two women had to do with why he knew all that.

She felt an uncomfortable pressure in her head, like someone was pushing their thumb just above the bridge of her nose. She recoiled a little bit, then glared at Belladonna. "Knock that off."

Belladonna raised one perfectly shaped eyebrow, implying something between _Knock what off? _and _Make me._

"Don't even. You are _so _bad at that. Ah'm not even a telepath, and Ah could do better than that. Ah've had lahk three whole hours of competent training, which is three more hours than you ever got, so how about you talk with your mouth, an' just to be fair, Ah won't talk with mah skin." She slipped off her right glove and flexed her fingers, the empty hand a more blatant threat than one with any kind of weapon in it.

Bella looked her over, then laughed. "You grew a spine, little girl. Last time I saw you, y'was hidin' in his shadow an' scared to death."

Rogue laughed, too, and it was no more a cheerful, sociable laugh than Bella's had been. "Ah got bigger things to be scared of than you."

_And he told me he loved me, _she added in the now-private silence of her head. _Somethin' he never told you. There's no reason for me to be scared of you anymore._

Bella nodded her approval. "So what did he send y'here for?"

"He don't send me nowhere. You saved his life once, and so Ah owe you. Ah came so both of us could settle that debt." She slipped her fingers back into her glove and tugged into place, to give her hands something to do. "You know the penalties the feds are layin' down on mutants who don't register. You can probably guess what'll happen to you if you do."

Bella nodded. "My littler cousins said dat two kids from dey high school dat registered ain't been seen in class for a week. Rumor is dey got suspended pending investigation of if dey been cheating on every exam since kindergarten. Course, if I was de feds, an' I had a list of every twelve-year-old kid wid superpowers, I'd be openin' up a private education institution wid real think walls right about now."

"They probably are, we just haven't found it yet. There's an evacuation happening. We've got a safe place to go. If you want to get out, Ah can make that happen. That's all."

Now that she said it, it seemed silly, anticlimactic. She slipped the fingers of one hand between the fingers of the other and snugged the glove into place, to give herself something to do.

"Generous," Bella said, her tone unreadable. "But unnecessary. I know how t'stay clear of de law."

"Ah know y'do. Remy just wanted t'be sure. If you're gonna stay, just—keep your head down. The feds are startin' to figure out what to look for. Ah had to take a freakin' plane here because the Air Force is swarmin' around like mosquitoes. Don't use your powers any more than you kin help. You figured out how to shut it down at all?"

Bella nodded. "Mostly." She hesitated, and some of her queenly confidence seemed to drain away, replace with hesitance that bordered on shyness. "You live with telepaths, _c'est ça_?"

Rogue nodded.

"Any a'dem ever talk about havin' . . . dreams?"

"What kind of dreams?"

"Dreams where I'm bein' hunted. Like somebody's lookin' for me and it's just a matter a'time until dey find where I'm hidin'."

Rogue racked her brains. "Ah remember Jean sayin' once that when she first started manifesting, she'd pick things up when she was driftin' off to sleep or just wakin' up, and it took her a while to figure out that what she was dreamin' about was really what the people around her were thinkin'. But unless your family's schemin' to kill ya, which considering it's your family Ah wouldn't be too surprised about, it's probably just all the stress. You could cut the tension around here with a knife."

Bella nodded, accepting the answer, although it seemed like she was disappointed by its brevity.

"If you're stayin', then good luck to you," Rogue said at last. "Delphine, thank you so much. Ah know arrangin' this wasn't convenient for you. Ah've got a, uh, a plane to catch."

* * *

French lessons:

_Desolé_, as you know, is 'Sorry.'

_T'inquiete pas_: Don't worry.

_Reveille-toi, cherie. C'est l'heure: _Wake up, darling. It's time.

_Il faut que tu t'envas bientot. Tu peut te doucher, et il y a du petit dej. Ca va? _You need to leave pretty soon. You can take a shower, and there's breakfast. Sound good?

_Peut-tu le prendre de moi?_ Can you take it from me?

_A-t-il marché? _Did it work?

_C'est ça?_ That's right, isn't it?

And Author's Notes:

Um . . . I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I swear I will do better.

In other news, everybody congratulate me! I start my graduate degree in English Literature in two weeks. Yaay!


	26. Chapter 26

Chapter 26

* * *

"Scott!"

Scott felt his brow knit as he struggled to place the unfamiliar voice that greeted him in the visitor's room. His jaw was still throbbing, despite the Tylenol he'd asked for . . . not enough to be incapacitating, but enough to make thinking difficult. And he was unsteady on his feet, the shock and fear making every muscle in his body twitch and shudder unpredictably. He'd tied his blindfold tight across his eyes, unable to trust his eyelids, and the steady pressure around his head suddenly seemed like the only secure thing in a world pitching out of control.

"Are you okay?" the voice demanded. "It's me, Warren." A hand fell on his shoulder, and he jumped involuntarily.

"Warren?"

"Me, too, if you're interested," said Royal's voice from slightly farther away.

Scott grabbed hold of the arm that still had him by the shoulder, trying to steady his breathing. _You know Warren. You trust Warren. Take it easy._

"I take it you got my call," he choked out, after taking a second to steady himself.

"They wouldn't let us in until this morning," Royal told him apologetically. "How's your face?"

"Oh, it's great," Scott deadpanned. "Tooth's all fixed. Did he give me a silver filling, or the tooth-colored kind?" He pulled his lip down a bit, then let it go with a humorless half-laugh. "I guess it doesn't matter."

"You told him you hadn't been numbed?"

"He told me he'd stop drilling as soon as I opened my eyes. It was deliberate. No question."

"Sick," Warren spat. "That guy is one sick sociopath. I knew I had a reason to hate dentists. Don't worry, he's gonna answer for this."

"We're getting everything moving to start an official inquiry," said Royal, "and you better believe we're telling the press. Aside from drilling your teeth open, did he hit you at all? Try to force your eyes open?"

Scott shook his head. "Didn't do anything that could've left a mark."

"Your word against his," Royal sighed. "Oh, goody."

"What does that matter?" Warren demanded. "Just look at him. Any idiot can see something's been done to him. He can hardly stay on his feet."

"I can see it," Royal assured him. "Last time I saw this kid, he was cool as a cucumber, takin' the world on with his eyes shut. Look at him now."

"What do I look like?" Scott asked.

"Like you just woke up from a nightmare about being hit by a truck to discover that the airplane you're flying on is crashing," Warren told him.

Scott nodded. "I can kinda see that." Feeling a need to defend himself, he added, "It's not even that it really hurt that much . . . I mean, it hurt, of course it hurt, it hurt a lot . . . but it was just that I couldn't move. He had me tied down. I couldn't even talk. It was just like a nightmare. Except with actual pain, not just waking up in the nick of time."

"We've got to get you out of here," Warren announced. "This is insane. This whole scheme is insane. No jury's ever going to rule in your favor."

"I wouldn't be too worried about that," Royal interjected. "The security camera footage is standing up to every test we can run on it. The jury's not going to be a problem . . . it's just keeping him in one piece long enough to stand up in front of one. It wasn't supposed to be a problem. He was supposed to be in solitary confinement. We're going to be poking into who gave the order to put you with other prisoners, and with any luck that person will be fired the second we get his name. But inside a prison and outside a prison are two separate worlds. We're doing everything we can, but I can't guarantee that you're going to be safe."

"I can deal with whatever they throw at me," Scott assured him. "Just get me in front of that jury."

"You're sure?"

"I can do this."

He heard Royal chuckle. "Summers, you're an idiot. But you've sure got balls."

"And I'd like to keep them, so if you could ask somebody to let me stay in solitary today . . ."

_Cyclops? Cyclops, can you hear me?_

Scott felt himself burst into the first full-on, genuine smile he'd managed in days. _Professor Xavier!_

"Scott?"

_Hold on a second, Professor._ "Can we wrap this up?" he asked Warren and Royal, gesturing vaguely to his head. "I've got a call."

* * *

_Hey, I'm here._Scott's familiar voice sounded in Professor Xavier's head. It was, for lack of a better word, scratchy. Charles had become used to the large, powerful Cerebro in the basement of his own home, which was the result of years of development and fine-tuning. This hastily thrown-together substitute had neither the same range, nor precision, nor clarity. But he could get through to the planet surface, and that was good enough, for the moment.

Forge was watching the computer screen he'd rigged into the body of the machine. Dancing lines indicated the output of electrical and mental energy, and how much was feeding back into the system. Eric stood behind the younger mutant, watching over his shoulder, one hand extended as he provided electromagnetic power. The air between his palm and the surface of the desk wavered, as though under extreme heat, and a quiet, wavering hum filled the room.

Charles nodded to them both, letting them know that he'd gotten through. _Scott, we've just seen the news up here. Are you all right?_

_I'm okay._

_I thought that jail might be difficult, for you, but I never imagined that someone in a position of responsibility would intentionally harm you. We didn't plan for this. I don't like it._

He could feel Scott's amused wince of pain. _I'm not too thrilled about it either, Professor._

_I think we need to regroup and come up with an alternate plan._

_I think we need to NOT do that._

_We can have a strike team down there to extract you in—_

_Don't you dare, sir. One act of mutant violence with the X-Men's name on it and everything's over for us. We will never get to go home. I'm not gonna let that happen._

Charles felt his fists clench involuntarily around the armrests of his chair. _You are too brave for your own good, Scott Summers._

_Learned from the best, sir._

_I am more proud of you than I can say._

_Thanks._

_We sent the house's security camera records to your lawyer's office. Did they come through?_

_Yeah. Royal's over the moon about them. He thinks this case is going to be easy. Tell everybody they did good work. How's the team?_

_Not as fine as I would like. Shadowcat was captured attempting to recover those files, and Gambit suffered minor injuries on her rescue mission. Storm is still limping. Rogue has been out of contact since the last pickup. We haven't been able to reach Alex or his foster parents. And I haven't heard from Jean or Logan._

_Don't worry about them. Jean's been contacting me. She's all right._

_I don't doubt it, as long as she's with Logan. I'll try to reach her as soon as we're done here. If she's been in touch with you, she can't be more than a few hundred miles away. The range on the Velocity Cerebro isn't very good._

He felt Scott smile. _That's comforting to hear. When you talk to her, tell her that I love her, okay?_

_I'm sure that she knows, but I'll remind her._

* * *

Gambit woke up to pounding.

He groaned, his mind grabbing feebly at his rapidly-fading dream of warmth and the scent of magnolia. What day was it? "_Pas le dimanche . . . vignt minutes le dimanche matin, laisse-moi en paix . . ._" He wormed his head under his thin pillow.

"Gambit, you in there?"

Reluctantly, he let curiosity get the better of him. He propped himself up on his elbows, tossing the pillow away. "Alvers?" What was Lance Alvers doing waking him up on a Sunday morning?

"Kitty sent me up to get you. There's, um . . . a situation. Planetside. You probably want to see this."

Not another situation. Not one more accursed situation. But his legs kicked of their own volition, exposing his mostly-naked self to the uncomfortably cool recirculated Avalon air. "Be down en cinq minutes," he grumbled, grabbing for his clothes.

"Everybody's down in the rec room."

"We got a rec room?" He really needed to get his bearings in this place; up until now, he'd been too overwhelmed with 'situations' to give the station a thorough going-over.

"It's down the stairs to the level with the kitchen on it, then I think like three lefts and a right. You'll hear people. See you down there."

When Gambit found the rec room, he discovered that he'd been right in thinking it was way too early to get up. The room was crowded with X-Men, Brotherhood, and unaffiliated new arrivals, many of them either in pajamas (those who'd had a chance to pack any) or the hospital scrubs that the pajama-less were using instead. Most, like Gambit, were barefoot and tousle-haired. The room was carpeted, windowless, and equipped with a projector mounted in the ceiling. The projector was splaying MSNBC on the wall furthest from the door. Gambit fished a thin black elastic band from his pocket and put it in his mouth, to free up his hands while he whipped his hair back into its customary ponytail. His eyes scanned the room: no Magneto, Xavier, Beast, or Storm.

The story that everyone had gathered to watch was repeating.

" . . . accusations of torture from the legal counsel of Scott Summers, alleged ringleader of the mutant rights organization known as the X-Men. Summers was involved in an altercation yesterday morning in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan, where he is being held while awaiting trial on multiple charges. Sources inform us that Summers severely chipped a tooth in the fight, and was transported to a nearby dental clinic for emergency treatment."

"He open his eyes?" Gambit asked the nearest X-Man, who turned out to be Sam.

"Don't look like it," Sam murmured back, not taking his eyes from the flickering picture.

"Now, his attorney alleges that while he was undergoing this repair work, Summers was deliberately denied Novocaine or any other form of pain relief."

The picture cut to footage of an expensively-suited man on the steps of a stone building, surrounded by a ring of reporters. "This was not a medical oversight," the man announced. "This was not an accident of any kind. This was hate crime. Mr. Summers has displayed tremendous faith in the justice system of the United States my giving himself up and agreeing to stand trial, and this same system will have failed him spectacularly if this despicable act of torture goes unpunished."

The feed cut back to the reporter. "The man who treated Mr. Summers is fifty-three-year-old Dr. Thomas Garcia, a dental surgeon who has been working with New York's state and federal penitentiaries for well over a decade. Dr. Garcia insists that he did administer Novocaine before beginning Mr. Summer's dental work, and that any accusations that he did otherwise are simply a publicity stunt."

Another cut. This time the screen showed a white-haired, dark-skinned gentleman who would have had a kind face if his expression hadn't been so full of anger and disappointment. "I have been treating inmates for fourteen years," he insisted. "I've worked with convicted murderers and men on death row. My job is not to judge these people. My responsibility . . . and it is one that I consider a great trust on the part of the state of New York . . . is simply to care for the health and comfort of the prison population. To accuse me of knowingly inflicting pain on a patient for any reason, particularly a political reason, is slanderous and deeply insulting."

"Ooh, just lemme at that guy," Kitty hissed. She wasn't hooked up to the IV stand anymore, but she was still pale and looked unsteady on her bare feet. Lance was standing a little bit too close to her, watching out of the corner of his eye for her to need a shoulder to lean on. Her entire attention was focused on the picture, her mouth set in a thin, angry line.

"He looks like a nice person," one of the littler mutants . . . Red Bull? Rainier? . . . observed hesitantly.

"But you don't know Scott," Bobby countered. "He's like the biggest Boy Scout ever made. He would never, ever tell a lie like that."

"As far as I know, he's never told a lie at all," said Kitty.

"I don't think he can spell 'lie'," said Roberto, getting into the spirit of the thing.

"They tortured him," said a soft, pained English voice . . . Betsy.

_They tortured him._

Remy had heard the expression 'to see red' before. He'd even used it once or twice. But he hadn't thought it was literal. It was an old, abstract reference to bullfighting, and the red capes of the matadors. And yet the edges of his vision were going hazy, tinted with crimson, like he was recovering from a few more of Piotr's punches. Or, oddly enough, like he was suffering from messed-up circulation from being chained to a ceiling for a couple of hours in an upstairs room of his ex-wife's parents' house.

_They tortured him._

Gambit burst into the upstairs conference room so fast that everybody, even Magneto, jumped. "Dis gone plenty far enough," he announced, his voice too loud for the little space, for his customary laconic self-control. "We gettin' him outta dere."

"I understand how you feel, Gambit," Xavier told him, and even through the red haze Remy could see the lines of stress and pain around his eyes.

"Dat's great. So lemme have a strike team, I'll draw up a plan, an' we have him home in time for dinner. Assumin' he can eat."

Xavier shook his head. "I'm sorry."

Gambit went still, the kind of intense stillness that made people nervous. "We are not," he announced, "Leavin'. Him. There."

"I'm afraid we have to."

"You're 'afraid we have to'? It's Scott! He's practically your son! You gonna leave him in prison, gettin' his teeth pulled out and beat to a bloody pulp, just so you can prove a point about human nature to Bucket-head here? He is _Scott_. He is _ours_. Let's go _get him_."

"That's not what Scott wants."

"To hell wid what Scott wants! Scott's an idiot!"

"Gambit, we got Cerebro working this morning. I just finished talking to him. I offered to send an extraction team, and he turned it down. He wants to stay and finish what he started."

"Dat's 'cause he's a moron!"

"It's his choice. I'm no happier about it than you are, but the fact remains that this trial is our best hope for ending this conflict without bloodshed, and Scott knows it. If we pull him out, it will be war."

"He's your boy, an' he's screamin' in pain. Why is it not war already?"

"Because," Magneto cut in, "it is not time yet." His gray eyes were cold and fierce and stern.

"He's tortured," Gambit reiterated.

"Others have been tortured before him. Some have even lived through it. Wait. The time will come."

"Or it may not," Professor Xavier amended gently. "One way or another, he will walk free. I promise you."

Gambit felt a nudge in his mind. Xavier was pushing on the closed, locked gates of his thoughts, asking for admittance . . . maybe to show the sincerity of the promise. Gambit remained belligerently mute.

"Please, Gambit," Xavier requested. The pressure in Gambit's head disappeared. "The team needs you to be strong right now. So few of the senior X-Men are still here. The younger students need to see you see that you are calm, or they will begin to panic. I cannot have that right now. I need your _sangfroid_."

_Sangfroid_. Cold-bloodedness. Yes, his _sangfroid_ was in high demand this week. Too bad every drop of his blood was boiling with anger. But outnumbered and outgunned, he was forced to stand down. One breath . . . two breaths . . . the red haze receded; he could think again.

"If y'call Rouge today," he said, "I'd be grateful if you didn' mention what just happened just' now."

"I certainly won't, if you wish it."

* * *

Author's Notes:

My dear, faithful friends, my patient wonderful colleagues . . . I have a goal.

My goal is to finish and publish Flight Risk before the new semester starts on the 7th of January.

There's still a long way to go, and a lot of work to be done. Encouragement and hugs are much appreciated.

I remain, as ever, your humble and obedient servant.

Seri

Oh, whoops! Forgot the French.

Pas le dimanche . . . vignt minutes le dimanche matin, laisse-moi en paix . . . Not Sundays . . . twenty minutes on Sunday morning, leave me alone . . . (As you remember, Gambit has strong [almost religious] feelings about being woken up on Sunday.)


	27. Chapter 27

Chapter 27

* * *

Jean woke up with a crick in her neck. She twisted herself upright, stretching as much as she could in the flight harness still strapped around her body. Ouch. Apparently she hadn't done as good a job of suppressing the backlash of that fire stunt as she'd thought. "Where are we?"

"Sea of Japan," Logan told her.

"Already?" She turned in her chair to look for Laura, and found her still in the back corner where she'd fallen asleep. She was awake now, sitting cross-legged with the water-warped copy of _Little House _pressed open against her knee. Her face was as closed and hostile as ever, but she didn't close the book or try to get up and move away. "How long was I . . . wait . . . Sea of Japan? Isn't that on the other side of Japan? Did we overshoot, or what?"

"Change of plans. My contact's on a business trip in Seoul."

"Seoul, Korea?"

"That's the one. We'd be there already, but you've got to swing down out of your way to get there or else you get shot down by communists. And fun as that would be, we really don't have time for that kind of thing."

"Do we have someplace to land?"

"Yeah, I've called ahead, so we're expected."

"Is that safe?"

"Yes."

"You sure?"

Logan didn't dignify this with a response, and Jean decided in hindsight that it had been a foolish question. Logan didn't trust people readily; anyone he did trust was someone who had proven himself beyond question.

As promised, the rest of their flight wasn't very long. It probably wasn't more than fifteen minutes before the endless, unchanging ocean gave way to a thickly wooded landscape, and half an hour beyond that, the woods disappeared and were replaced by a seemingly endless panorama of city.

Jean was no stranger to cities; she lived only a few hours outside of New York. But even to her jaded eyes, Seoul was spectacular. It just kept going, skyscraper after skyscraper after skyscraper, for mile after mile after mile. Every so often mountains jutted up through the urban mess, but the city just poured around them, splashing buildings up their sides as high as they would stick. As she stared out the window, feasting her eyes on the endless panorama, she felt Laura come up behind her. Out of strictest curiosity, Jean brushed at Laura's mind, and saw a systematic hunt for hiding places, vantage points, structural weaknesses. There was no whisper of appreciation for, or even awareness of, the beauty of the sight.

Involuntarily, she shuddered. Laura's mind was an unsettling place to be. What had HYDRA done to this poor girl?

"There," Logan told them, pointing in front of the chopper. One skyscraper tower stood out from the others . . . not the tallest in the city, but the largest in the immediate vicinity, and distinct from any of the buildings around it. It had a clover-leaf footprint, probably to maximize the number of windows in the rooms inside. The windows-dozens of levels of them-were a deep, grayish blue-green. On the tower's flat roof was a wide platform, with the bold white H and circle that marked a helicopter landing pad.

Logan switched from the jet engines to flying solely on the blades, and Laura automatically caught her balance to compensate for the change in Velocity's movement.

"Office tower?" Jean guessed.

"Hotel," Logan corrected.

_Holy cow_, thought Jean. The building had to be fifty stories high at least. That was a lot of hotel.

Velocity settled neatly into her place in the middle of the pad, and Logan killed the engines, letting the rotors slow from a high roar to a low, sleepy, fading drone. He unbuckled his harness and turned in his chair to look at Laura. "Okay, Kiddo," He told her. "You ready for this?"

Laura looked at him, impassive, but the involuntary tilt of her head betrayed her inward curiosity.

"As near as I can tell, nobody waiting out there for us is going to try to hurt you, so try to keep your claws in. I know it's a reflex, but try. Bend your wrists if you have to. But we don't want the news that you're here getting back to SHIELD, and those things are a dead giveaway. Stick close to me, or to Jean. You can trust us. We're on your side. You getting all this?"

Laura nodded. Her left hand was clamped tight around her book, the only thing in the world she owned.

Logan reached up and took hold of Laura's chin, giving it an affectionate little shake before letting go. Laura flinched, but she didn't jump away or move to attack him. Jean, too, recoiled a little bit in the privacy of her own head. It was really quite amazing how vividly she remembered when Logan used to do that to her.

The little gesture had lasted barely a second. the next second, Logan was up out of his seat and opening the locks on the hatch. "Let's do this thing, then."

The helicopter pad was made of a plain, bare metal grating had no walls around it, or even a railing. The city spread out at their feet in every direction. Even up here, the chilly air smelled a little smoggy and a little spicy. It was not, thank goodness, anywhere near as cold as it had been in Canada. The only way off the platform was a square hole cut in one corner that opened onto a metal spiral staircase. Logan went down first, then Laura, with Jean bringing up the rear.

The level below, the actual roof of the building, was landscaped as a garden, the middle of it kept in partial shade by the platform above. Paved paths wound through and around raised beds filled with ruffly purple cabbages and other cold-weather-tolerant ornamental plants. Standing in the intersection of two of the curving paths was a cluster of six people.

Five of them were men, all in business suits and overcoats, their smooth faces and narrow eyes proclaiming them to be either Korean or Japanese. Jean was quite sure that they all looked different from one another, but at first glance all her eyes could process and absorb was the sameness of the expensive suits, the glossy black or graying hair in several different professional-looking cuts, the similar heights each at least two inches below her own. At least they were all wearing different ties.

The sixth member of the group, and the one who stood out in front to meet them, was a woman. She was by far the oldest member of the party. Despite the obvious age written in the lines of her face, she carried herself very straight, and her dark brown eyes were bright, clear, and intelligent. Her hair was entirely white and fine as spiderweb, held in a knot at the back of her head. She was wrapped in a gray wool coat—it was dark gray, but with all the black coats in the background it looked relatively bright—and had stood with her hands folded and tucked inside her wide sleeves. Her face was solemn, but she was smiling. "Logan."

Logan was smiling, too. "Mariko."

* * *

Lieutenant Carol Danvers, of the United States Air Force, was in the middle of weaving a latticework pie crust when the doorbell rang. Since her hands were full and covered in flour, she let her mom answer it. Because the radio was blaring golden oldies, a Danvers family after-church Sunday afternoon tradition, she couldn't hear what was said. But a moment later her mom was next to her, one hand on her taller daughter's shoulder. "Carol, it's . . . they say they're from Special Investigations."

Carol froze for a second. She had a moment of panic as her fight-or-flight response kicked in, but she fought it down. She was no longer what she had been; she could neither fight nor fly. She'd known that this was coming.

"Just a second." With steady hands, she wove the last short strip of dough across the top of the pie. "Crimp that closed and give it a brush with some milk, and it'll be ready to pop in the oven."

With almost ritualistic steadiness, she washed the flour from her hands in the kitchen sink, pulled out the elastic that had been holding back her long blonde hair, and brushed the white streaks off of her t-shirt and jeans. Then she left the kitchen and walked into the foyer, where the AFOSI agents were waiting for her.

"Lieutenant Danvers," The tallest of the three agents announced, "we have some questions for you."

"Certainly, Captain," Carol responded, noting his superior rank affixed to his collar.

"We need you to come with us, please."

"I'll get my coat."

She passed her mother on her way to the hall closet. "Do you think you'll be back in time for dinner?" her mom asked, lines in her forehead betraying her nervousness.

Carol shrugged on her coat and did up the buttons. "No," she said truthfully. "This will probably take a while. If I don't call you before tomorrow, will you make sure my fish get fed until I get back?" It was a bluff. She knew she wasn't coming back. But she couldn't just say that out loud.

"Of course, honey."

Carol checked that her house keys and cell phone were in her coat pockets, kissed her mom on the cheek, slipped her feet into her shoes, and walked out the door with the other officers forming a tight, official, uniformed circle around her. Trapped. Nowhere to run.

She spared a glance for the sky just before climbing into the dark, expensive car with tinted windows. _If only . . . . _Charles Xavier had told her that her magnificent mutant abilities might one day re-emerge, and she'd waited breathlessly, hoping. She tried one more time, pushing up towards the wide, free sky with everything she had. Her feet remained firmly anchored on the pavement.

_Well,_ Carol thought, resigned. _If I'd been in his place, I probably would have tried to give me a little hope, too. _She climbed into the car, and one of the agents slammed the door shut behind her.

* * *

Less than twenty-four hours after she'd landed, Rogue was back at the airport. Her backpack was heavier than it had been, since it now contained both her uniform and the spare clothes she'd gotten from Warren, but it was still easier to manage than her school bag. Ever the gentleman, Bobby opened her door for her and helped her out of the car.

"Ticket," he announced, handing her an airline pass in its paper sleeve. Rogue slid it out and saw the name printed thereon: _LeBeau, Rogue Azami._

"How'd you know about this?" she asked, pointing to the name.

Bobby shrugged. "I'm a t'ief. I went through your stuff."

Rogue paused, wondering if she should be ticked off. Finally, she decided there was no point. He was Remy's brother, after all, and he had the sort of face that it was impossible to be angry at.

"Cash," he went on, slapping a roll of bills into her palm. "_Don't," _he ordered, when he saw her mouth fly open to protest. "I can get more when I need it, an' you can't. You've got our number, in case you need anythin' else, right?"

"Right."

"If _Pere _answers, tell him you're Chrissie and you wanna talk t'me."

"Who's Chrissie?"

"Friend a'mine wid a voice kinda like yours. De less _Pere_ knows, de better for everybody. Memere an' I'll keep _la bouche fermee, _an' so will Belle if she's got half a brain."

Rogue nodded. "Bobby, kin Ah ask you one more favor?"

"_Nommez-le._"

"Ah'll call as soon as Ah got mah cell phone back, an' give you the number. If you happen t'hear about any of the guilds takin' another job against mutants, will you call me? Please?"

Bobby paused. "What'd you mean, 'another' job?"

"Remy said the New York guild took a job on the Institute."

"They cain't. Your house is protected wid Remy's seal. One a'de perks of makin' Master Thief."

"Yeah, they didn't finish the job, but they didn't tell Remy about it, either. Just tuh be jerks, Ah guess."

Bobby frowned and lowered his voice. "Y'ever find out who paid for dat job?"

"Creed," said Rogue, infusing as much venom into her voice as possible.

She could almost see something go _click_ in Bobby's head. "De job was on _your_ house," he murmured, barely moving his lips.

"What? You heard about it?"

"Yeah, but not 'cause it was 'gainst all y'all. Guildmaster Petrelli called Pere when he got offered de job, 'cause it was _bien bizarre._ Senator Creed came t'him personally. Like, on his own feet in his own shoes."

"That's weird?"

"_So _weird. Somebody as important as a U.S. Senator sure might hire de guild t'pull a job, but he'd never show up t'discuss it _himself_. He'd send a lackey's lackey's lackey . . . get himself as distanced from us as possible, in case any'tin' went wrong. Not dat it would," he added, guild pride coming out. "Politicians is just paranoid. But him showin' up like dat was so strange dat de guildmaster called fo'a second opinion before he agreed t'anythin', which is how I heard about it."

"Why would he do that?"

"Pere's guess was dat de senator's got somebody on his staff dat he don't trust. Or he gettin' paranoid an' just don't trust anybody. Can't blame him . . . if I'd ticked off your people, I'd be gettin' paranoid, too."

"That was before he ticked us off," Rogue mused. "What is goin' on in that freak's head?"

Bobby snapped himself out of his reverie. "Tomorrow's problem," he decided. Go get y'butt on dat plane. Go on."

Rogue hugged him one last time. "_Thank _you," she reiterated, emphasizing her words with a squeeze. "Thank you so much, Bobby."

She felt him chuckle. "Yo'welcome, _cherie." _He released her and held her at arm's length for a moment. "Go talk some sense int' my stupid baby brother. Don' let him lose you."

Rogue nodded. "Ah'll try."

* * *

_la bouche fermee: _a closed mouth.

_Nommez-le: _Name it.

_bien bizarre:_ Really weird.

Author's Notes: Thank you, team! I've got SO much written to be published in the next few days. Hold onto your hats!

Seri


	28. Chapter 28

Chapter 28

* * *

It brought back memories both vivid and sweet to be handed a warm, handle-less earthenware cup of green tea by the graceful hands of Mariko Yashida. Logan accepted the cup with both hands, nodding his head in as much of a bow as he could manage while sitting in an armchair this deep.

Mariko took her seat across from him and picked up her own cup. How many years had it been? Sixty? Seventy, maybe? Surely not that long. The decades had been kind to her; she had aged with the timeless grace that only the women of Asia seemed to manage. As she took her first sip, she watched him over the top of her cup, smile lines fanning out from the corners of her eyes. There was no embarrassment anymore, no resentment . . . there'd been way too much water under the bridge for that.

She lowered the cup, cradling it in both hands. "What are you looking at?" she asked, almost teasing.

He smiled. "Your eyelids. You've had them done."

She cast her eyes down, having the decency to be a little embarrassed but at the same time reflexively showing off the deep crease in each lid, like that of a westerner. He'd remembered her eyes with smooth lids, the skin folding invisibly under itself at her lash line. "A silly piece of vanity, but it is impossible to be taken seriously in the business world these days without it."

"Silly's right."

"You're hardly in a position to criticize." She looked him over pointedly.

"I told you this would probably happen, Mariko."

"Yes, you did. And I'm astonished by how it doesn't seem strange to me. It's like we met three weeks ago. You haven't even changed your hairstyle."

He combed one hand self-consciously through his hair, and she laughed, discreetly hiding her mouth with her free hand.

"A lot about me has changed," he assured her. "Just not where it's visible most of the time." He held out her hand to her, palm down, and slowly pushed his claws into his hand and through his skin. It hurt like hell to do this so slowly, but he didn't want to scare her. It would make him sick if he ever scared her.

He heard her catch her breath, but she accepted his unspoken invitation and put down her teacup and took his hand in both of hers, studying the heft of it and the magnificent, gleaming blades.

"Who did this?" she asked softly.

"A bunch of mad scientists. Back in the eighties, I think. Hard to pin it down. My memory's shot."

"You have kept your face and lost your mind, whereas I have kept my mind and lost my face."

Logan chuckled and slipped the claws back inside, flexing his fingers to alleviate the healing itch. Somehow, being teased by Mariko made all the craziness seem so much less important. He took a sip of the tea and swallowed slowly, savoring the warm, clean feeling of it in his mouth.

"What has brought you back, Logan?" Mariko asked, and her voice was gentle and calm.

"I'd love to be able to give you some half-decent answer to that, but the plain truth is that I need a favor."

"You are more than entitled to one."

"It's a very big, very personal, and possibly very dangerous favor."

"Anything and everything that I have to give is at your service." They both knew the one thing she would not give him; the fact that she didn't mention it suggested to Logan that she assumed he would no longer want it.

Logan paused a second before continuing, marvelling at this woman and what a lucky sod he was to have known her. To still know her, technically.

"It's Laura."

Mariko nodded. He'd introduced Laura and Jean to her immediately after they'd landed, before the two girls had been escorted away by a hotel concierge to a room, which he assumed would have a shower, which he expected would make Jean the happiest person on the continent of Asia. "Is she yours?"

"She is now," said Logan, glossing over the complicated problem of Laura's lack of parentage. In as few words as possible, he summed up who and what she was: a clone, a weapon, a supersoldier, a runaway, a guerrilla, a refugee, and finally a child.

"If things weren't such a mess, I'd bring her to the Xavier Institute . . . it's where I've been living these last few years, and they've got the kind of resources to maybe help her."

"The name sounds familiar. I've heard of this place recently."

"You should have. The U.S. military attacked it last week."

"Ah, yes."

"The kids are evacuated to as safe a place as we can hope for, but there's no way it's a safe place for Laura. And SHIELD wants her bad, now that they flushed her out of where she's been hiding. I need to hide her somewhere, with people who can handle the kind of crazy she's had beaten into her head, who can stand up to Nick Fury if he tries to kidnap or extradite her, and who I can trust to keep her safe until I can come back to get her."

"And when will that be?"

"Perfect world? Couple of weeks."

"And in our world, perhaps never, I suppose."

Logan shrugged, admitting it.

"And what about Jean?" Mariko asked gently. "Will you leave here with me as well?"

"Nah. Jean's an adult. I can't make her stay anywhere she doesn't want to. Besides, this is her fight—that's her boyfriend they've got locked up in New York. She's got a right to get in a few hits for his sake."

Mariko's eyebrows went up in surprise. "Really? And does this boyfriend know that you're in love with her?"

Logan was silent for a second, then chuckled. "I guess I must have forgotten how canny you are. That's a dangerous talent you've got."

"And yours is a very dangerous weakness. You write your soul in your eyes, Logan. You must learn to keep them down if you want to keep your secrets. Does he know?"

"Nah. But she does, and if she thought for one second I was trying to keep her outta danger because of it, she would skin me alive."

Mariko smiled. "She has a strong will?"

"The strongest."

"I can see why you would love her, then."

His amusement faded, several different kinds of guilt rising up to replace it. "Mariko, it's not—"

"I know," she assured him, cutting him off with a firm but graceful gesture of her hand. "Will you be leaving tonight?"

He should. He should get back into Velocity and head back to Avalon as fast as he could. The X-Men were going to need him, and to need Jean, trapped as they were in an indefensible position without Scott and soon to be without Charles. He needed to get back.

But there was Laura. She'd trusted him, if her hesitant acceptance of his presence in her life could be called that, for less than a day. Leaving her alone in this strange place with people she'd never met before was the worst possible thing he could do to her. There were lots of people to take care of the team . . . at least for a few more days. Laura didn't have anyone else right now.

And there was Jean, who'd reached for Cerebro, then left it alone. Why had she left it alone? And what was he going to _do_about her, when Sabertooth was prowling the station but she refused to be stashed somewhere safe? He very deliberately wrenched his train of thought back to where it was supposed to be.

"No. I'll stay a little while. Long enough for both you and the kid to figure out what you're getting into and have a fair chance to back out. How long are you in Seoul?"

"Two weeks. I only arrived yesterday."

"Well, at the very least, the girls and I could use a shower, and a meal, and a decent night's sleep on some actual mattresses. If it's not too much trouble."

"It would be my great pleasure."

* * *

They had obviously ended up at the fanciest, most expensive hotel in Korea, and the shower was magnificent. It was such a _relief_ to be clean.

Jean emerged from the bathroom wrapped in a thick and fluffy bathrobe monogrammed with the hotel's logo, toweling off her tangled and dripping hair. The shampoo she'd used claimed to have ginseng in it, which smelled odd and strong and earthy and non-shampoo-like. There was a comb in the bathroom, but she wanted to let herself dry off a little before attacking the mess.

Laura, sharing the double room with her, had gone straight to the computer set up at the desk by the window. She obviously didn't like having her back to the center of the room; she checked over her shoulder when she heard the bathroom door, and didn't look back at the screen until Jean had sat down unthreateningly on the edge of one of the beds. She looked so peculiar, barefoot in rags and dreadlocks, sitting in the austere modernist luxury of the hotel room.

"What did you find?" Jean asked, nodding at the computer.

"The mutant registry has reached thirty thousand entries," Laura told her.

Jean's breath caught in her throat. "_Thirty __thousand__?_" She'd never in her wildest dreams imagined mutants to be so numerous. And that was just the registered ones. "Is there anything about Scott?"

Laura cocked her head.

"Scott Summers. He's the team commander."

Laura made a brief, wordless noise of acknowledgment. "Combat name Cyclops. Ocular energy beams."

"That's him."

Laura twisted back to the computer and started typing, her fingers flying competently across the keyboard. "Arrested in the White House press room. Pleaded not guilty to numerous charges. Moved to New York for arraignment and trial. Made accusations of torture—"

"_Torture__?_" Jean dropped the towel and jumped for the computer, forgetting for a moment who was sitting at it.

Laura shot out of her chair like a bullet, rebounded off the wall, and flew at Jean's head with all four claws out. It happened so fast that Jean doubted that either of them really knew what was happening. Jean barely managed to deflect her in time, pushing her jump sideways and throwing her onto the double bed at the other side of the room. "Whoa, whoa, whoa!" she yelled, throwing a TK wall between the two of them lest Laura fly at her head again.

Laura already had her balance back, crouching low in the middle of the bed with her claws spread wide and her skinny chest heaving as her body grabbed for the oxygen she needed to sustain the fight-or-flight response. Her eyes were wide with panic, but she didn't jump again.

"Okay," Jean said, as much to calm herself as to calm Laura. "Okay. We're just going to take it easy for a second." She sat down on the other bed and took a few deep breaths herself. "Look, you know I'm not going to hurt you."

"I don't know anything," Laura told her, still panting.

Jean paused again, taking a second to try to see the situation from Laura's point of view. She'd left what she'd established as her home territory, trusting her safety to two people, only one of whom she knew at all. She was in an unfamiliar space with no resources and very little to rely on but those claws. And she had no reason to assume that anybody could be trusted-she'd probably never met anybody who could.

"Okay," she said again, pulling her feet up onto the bed and crossing her legs underneath her. Laura, seeing Jean take this less-defensible position, pulled in her claws and sat back on her heels. "I understand how scared you must be. I know this is all really new for you." _Like __it__'__s __all __so __comfortable __and __normal __for __me__ . . . _"But I need you to believe that I only want to help you. That's it. I would never, ever do anything to hurt you."

Laura just watched her, impassive, suspicious. Talk was cheap.

Jean sighed. They were going to have to find some common ground in this hotel room, or Laura wasn't going to be the only one up all night worrying about being knifed in her sleep.

"Let's try this," she suggested, and switched to telepathy, stretching her mind open wide. _Can __you __see __me__?_

Laura's head tilted a couple of degrees to the side.

_I__'__m __going __to __keep __my __mind __open __like __this__. __That __way__, __you __can __see __me__, __see __everything __that __I__'__m __thinking__. __If __you __see __me __thinking __about __hurting __or __betraying __you__, __or __if __I __close __my __mind__, __you__'__ll __have __some __warning__. __Sound __good__?_

She felt a tentative nudge inside her head. Laura was no telepath herself, but she had the focus and the presence of mind to explore what Jean showed to her . . . which was anything and everything Jean had to think about.

On the top of the list was Scott. Scott, and _torture_ . . . what did they mean by torture? What was happening over there? She'd told him this voluntary-arrest scheme was a bad idea . . . and Logan had assured her that they wouldn't hurt him . . . she wanted to get to the computer, but she couldn't turn her back to Laura until Laura was willing to do the same.

Laura shifted her weight forward onto her knees, her posture relaxing a little as hostility was replaced with curiosity. Jean let her mind wander, showing the younger girl everything that she herself wanted to see right now . . . her own beautiful house on Greymalkin lane, with the statue of Peace presiding over the fountain in the front driveway . . . Scott lounging on the loveseat in the front room, looking up from his homework to tell off Bobby and Roberto for making too much noise, smiling reluctantly at her when she called him out for being a stick-in-the-mud . . . Storm and Logan teasing each other as they set the table in the dining room . . . Professor Xavier looking up from his work to thank her for the announcement that dinner was ready . . . and Laura could not only see and hear the memory, but _feel _it. There was nowhere in the world where Jean felt so safe, so accepted and so needed, as the Institute that she'd called home since she'd been twelve years old. If Laura had never felt that way, then it was no wonder she reacted to the world the way she did.

"Is this okay?" Jean asked. "Does that help?"

"It helps," Laura told her, her voice breathy and distracted. Her eyes weren't focused, either. All of her attention was still inside her mind, watching what was happening in Jean's.

Both of them felt Jean's mind tug back to Scott, back to the computer, the craving to know what was happening at home. Jean carefully released the TK shield that divided the room and clambered over the bed back to the desk where the computer waited. The image flashed across her mind of Laura lunging at her back, and they both knew exactly how scared she was. But Laura didn't move.

Jean forced her eyes to focus on the news article in front of her. Scott's name jumped out at her—_Scott __Summers_ at the top of the article, then just _Summers _in every reference thereafter. No one just called him _Summers_, except maybe Lance and the Brotherhood guys. She was being told about his situation by someone who'd never met him, some journalistic interloper invading her relationship with her boyfriend. The article described impassively this person named _Summers_ and how he had been involved in something called an _altercation_ (as opposed to a fistfight or a beating) and had _sustained __an __injury_ (someone had hit him hard in the face). He'd _received __treatment_ at a local dental clinic, then _claimed_ that the dentist had denied him any pain relief.

There were so many sentences in the passive voice, as though this person they described was a cardboard cutout being dragged through this nightmare by unnamed, uncontrollable forces. There was no hint of the man she knew who had set everything in motion—probably against the advice of everyone else involved, stubborn idiot that he was. The Scott that she knew was intelligent, proactive, assertive to the point of bossiness. This inanimate prop named _Summers_ was a stranger to her.

She should have called. It was too late now—even with Velocity's little Cerebro, even with how much better she'd gotten at stretching her powers, there was no way she'd be able to reach him in New York when she was in Seoul.

She finally had to close the browser window when she reached the comments section below the article. She only caught a glimpse of the first few entries . . . _I hope they bring back the NY death penalty for this Mutie, he killed American soldiers . . . . This kind of showboating is just to taint the jury pool. It's an underhanded ploy by his legal team . . . your a bigot, Scott Summers 4 President! . . . I totally needed another reason to be scared of dentists. Thanks alot __. . . _but it was enough to make her feel miserable and sick.

A few minutes ago, Korea seemed like a strange, uncomfortable, foreign place. Now she was inexpressibly glad to be so far removed from the United States. She felt so much safer here than she would have in her own country.

There was no use in thinking about it. She'd be back in calling range in a couple of days, right? That'd be soon enough to worry. The important thing now was to focus on the problems at hand—first and foremost, her filthy and volatile roommate.

Jean pushed away from the computer and turned back to Laura, who was now sitting cross-legged on her bed, not reading over Jean's shoulder so much as reading through her brain.

"You're pale," Laura observed bluntly. "Are you sick?"

Jean shook her head. "Not sick. Just upset. I don't like not being able to _do_ anything, especially when the people that I care about need my help." She sighed and shook her head. "I hate feeling useless."

"You're not. You're a telekinetic telepath. You're very useful."

"Only for the right kind of problem." She forced a smile. "Speaking of problems . . . if you promise not to stab me, I would really, _really_ like to do something about your hair."

* * *

Carol betrayed no concern, or even any emotion at all, as she waited in the interrogation room. She'd known she would end up here. She could see her reflection in the large one-way mirror across from her, her face blank. The walls were gray, and the table and two chairs were plain steel.

She was really almost astonished at how calm she felt. She'd expected to feel afraid, or conflicted, or angry, but instead she only felt the calm detachment of a well-drilled military officer. She knew exactly what was happening, and what she needed to do. She knew it could end up getting her killed. She could handle that.

The door opened, and the captain who'd picked her up walked into the room. His uniform was immaculate, the insignia gleaming. He'd dressed carefully to be the embodiment of the US Air Force, the organization to which she'd sworn her loyalty. Carol stood up and held herself at attention, her posture perfect even though her own uniform was back home in her closet.

"At ease, Lieutenant," the captain told her. Carol moved her right foot out and crossed her hands behind her, falling into parade rest. It was more formal than what the officer had ordered, but the familiar, well-drilled posture felt safe somehow.

The captain took the chair across from her, and she could see the back of his head in the mirror. "Have a seat," he ordered, indicating her chair. Carol sat, back straight and rigid.

"You're not under arrest," the captain assured her, and Carol almost let her mouth twitch up in a smile. Of course she wasn't; if she were under arrest, she'd have rights. "We just would appreciate your help in an ongoing investigation. We just have a few questions, and then you're free to go."

Carol nodded.

"Please state your name, rank, and serial number."

"Carol Susan Danvers, second lieutenant, three seven five three one four four seven." She spoke loudly and clearly, so that wherever the microphone was, it would pick up her voice.

"Lieutenant Danvers, are you or are you not X-gene positive?"

"I am X-gene positive."

"What is your classification?"

"I am a 3-beta mutant."

"Are you registered in the National Mutant Registry?"

"I am not."

"Why are you not?"

"Because I am already registered with United States Air Force Special Operations."

"Are you acquainted with Professor Charles Xavier?"

"I am."

"Who is he?"

"He is the founder and director of the Xavier Institute for the Gifted."

"Are you in regular contact with Professor Xavier?"

"I am not."

"Are you in regular contact with any of his students or colleagues?"

"I am."

"Please describe that contact."

"I regularly exchange letters with Rogue, who is one of his students."

"Why?"

"Rogue is my friend. I consider her like a younger sister."

"And why is that?"

"Because she is currently the custodian of the powers with which I was born."

"And how did that come about?"

Carol gave her first evasive answer. "It's very complicated, sir. You can read the full account in my official report."

"Have you been in contact with Rogue at any time in the last four days?"

"No."

"Has she made any attempt to communicate with you?"

"No."

"Have you made any attempt to communicate with her?"

"No."

"When you were in correspondence, did you at any time discuss the Mutant Registration Act?"

"Yes, it came up."

"Did she tell you of any plans her team had made in case of the Act being enforced?"

"Why don't you tell me, sir? I assume you've read all her letters by now."

The captain paused, as if startled that anyone so placid and professional could lash back at him like that."Yes," he admitted, "we have. And they haven't been very helpful in determining where Rogue and her schoolmates are now."

"That must be very frustrating for you, sir."

"Do you know where they went?"

"No."

"Do you have a means of contacting them?"

"Possibly."

"What do you mean by 'possibly'?"

"The group includes at least one very powerful telepath. Telepaths are generally very easy to reach."

"Please contact this telepath now."

"No, sir."

"That was a direct order, Lieutenant."

"And mine was a direct refusal, Captain."

"A refusal would be insubordination. That's grounds for a court martial."

"I'm aware of that, sir."

"Lieutenant," the captain, growled, rising from his chair to loom over her, "may I remind you that when you put on your uniform, you swore an oath to obey the orders of the officers appointed over you?"

"You may, sir." Carol was not intimidated by opponents larger than herself; she hadn't since her powers had manifested, and her confidence had remained even after the powers were gone. "But before I swore that, I swore to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. My oath didn't include any exceptions for domestic enemies who outrank me . . . or even domestic enemies who are U.S. senators."

For a second, he looked so angry that Carol thought he might even hit her. That would certainly be interesting.

"One more chance, Danvers," he informed her, his teeth barely unclenching enough to let the words out. "You'll cooperate with this investigation, or your career in the Air Force is over. I promise you that. I'll personally make sure you're locked away for the rest of your days, you insubordinate slut."

Carol smiled. If he'd descended to name-calling, she'd really yanked his chain. "I'd prefer the term 'conscientious objector slut,' Captain. And my career in the Air Force has been over for years . . . since the day I lost my powers. I know perfectly well that Harken and the rest of his cronies have been trying to think of a legitimate excuse to get me off the payroll, now that I can't take out fighter jets with my bare hands. Go ahead and court-martial me, lock me up . . . just don't think you're fooling anybody when you claim this is about patriotism. It's just a stinking mix of hatred and money. _Sir__._"

She sat back in her chair. Even though her voice had never risen above the calm, professional tone in which she'd started, it still felt deeply satisfying to have a proper rant. Now that she'd said it all, she felt strangely triumphant. Even if she was to be locked up for the rest of her days, she'd have this memory to gloat over on every single incarcerated morning.

The captain turned to the two-way mirror. "Lock her up," he ordered the people behind it. Then he stalked from the room.


	29. Chapter 29

Chapter 29

* * *

Rogue spent her afternoon in Chicago hunting down the last few names of people she hadn't been able to reach by phone. She made liberal use of taxis . . . even if she hadn't still been rattled from her aerial chase scene with the fighter planes, flying over a populated area in broad daylight was just plain stupid. And she wasn't eager to try hitchhiking again.

Even so, she was left kicking around MacCowell park by ten o'clock. There were a few other people in the park . . . homeless, like herself, huddled around fire barrels, their bodies wrapped in blankets or newspapers to try to keep warm. The cold didn't bother Rogue, so she stayed in the darkest shadows she could find under a couple of elm trees, arms wrapped around her backpack.

She didn't like waiting. Waiting meant she had to think, and thinking always took her straight back to Remy. He was in the darkness behind her eyelids, barely visible, his gleaming silver staff fluttering around his head and shoulders like the wings of a dragonfly. She could see his eyes gleaming in the dark. He looked—he _felt—_dangerous. The thought made her sick to her stomach. She hadn't been afraid of him for years and years, but she was afraid now . . . afraid of what he would become if he decided the world needed to be taken by force.

_And yet, _a treacherous voice whispered, _how would you feel about him if he acted against his own conscience for your sake . . . if he just surrendered? What would he be then? Whipped, that's what. You don't want to see him whipped. Not Gambit LeBeau._

Gambit LeBeau was proud, and arrogant, and independent. That was what she loved about him. He made her feel free. If he gave in, if he walked up to Professor Xavier and said _You have me do whatever you t'ink's best, I'll let you make de call_, he would no longer be the man she'd fallen so fiercely in love with.

She wished he were here. She wished she had a copy of him to talk to, to try to sort out all these twisty, nauseating, miserable feelings, before she spoke to the real him again. She wished she could let him know that she wasn't just flat-out angry at him . . . though she _was _still angry, no use pretending that she wasn't.

She unzipped her backpack and fished inside. After a few moments of groping around inside the bag, she pulled out one of the pens and the page she'd torn from the phone book. Blank paper would have been better, but it was all she had.

She folded the sheet into quarters to give herself a decent writing surface, then laid it on the palm of her left hand and uncapped the pen with her teeth. When the tip was poised over the paper, she stopped, hesitating. What could she say? 'I'm sorry'? She wasn't. She was in the right, and she knew it. 'I love you'? It would be almost an insult to send him those words on a page torn from a phone book, when he'd had the nerve to say them aloud, to her face, in front of her teammates.

Finally, she pressed the pen into the paper and wrote blind,

A[spade],

I miss you.

Q[heart]

She folded the note again and tucked it into her leg pocket, between the contact list and the photograph.

When she looked up again, the park seemed more . . . occupied . . . than it had. Indistinct figures drifted at the edges of the glow from the fire barrel and the distant street lights, their postures hunched and their movements uncertain. Rogue swung her backpack onto her shoulder and stood up, moving out into the shallower darkness.

Up in the sky, stars blinked.

Rogue froze, then forced herself to breathe. If it were a jet up there, the roar of the engine would have given it away. The only aircraft she knew that moved that silently were herself, Jean, and Magneto. The little spot of blackness dropped towards the ground, into the darkness in the middle of the park.

She moved towards it. In the shadows, the uncertain figures followed her.

She felt, rather than heard, the dense, heavy _thumps_ as the spheres buried themselves in the frozen ground. She sped up.

One of the spheres hissed as it depressurized. A lithe, black thing was silhouetted for a second against where the gleaming silver surface caught a distant reflection, then bounded toward her on all fours.

_Kurt. _"Kurt. _Kurt!_" Not until she saw his familiar silhouette did it hit her, all at once, how much she wanted her brother. In another second, she was nestled in his skinny arms, ducking her head a little so she could bury her face in his coat rather than the soft fur of his neck.

The hug went on longer than hugs were supposed to. Kurt, always sensitive, always there for his prickly, uncooperative sister, didn't let go until she did. Then he reached into his pocket and offered her both his hands. "Take one," he ordered. "Credit card or cell phone, you pick. But if ve get separated again, _you vill have one of zese on you._ You understand?"

Rogue almost laughed; bossiness did not come naturally to him. "Ah understand, Sir." She took the credit card and put it away.

Magneto's voice rumbled across the park. "Everyone into a sphere. We have very little time."

Rogue pointedly ignored him. "How's Amanda?"

"She's fine, she's fine. Gambit's looking out for her. Are you okay?"

"Had some close calls, but nothin' Ah couldn't handle," said Rogue, with more confidence than she felt. "Glad tuh see ya, though."

She felt something in her gut twang uneasily at the thought of Gambit 'looking out for' Amanda Sefton. She shoved it aside. She and Gambit were fighting, yes, but she trusted him. Or, at least, trusted him to not do something as un-classy as cheat on her. Or, at least, she trusted Amanda enough to not do something as un-classy as cheat on Kurt.

People were all around them now, loading bags into spheres and piling in themselves. The spheres seemed to be glowing a little, making it easier to see as much as anyone needed to. Rogue turned away from Kurt and looked through the crowd. "Hang on," she told him, "Ah gotta find somebody."

"Vhat do zey look like?"

Rogue didn't bother to answer; she'd already lifted herself about a foot into the air, and glimpsed the blonde head she was looking for.

"Alyssa!" Rogue zipped over to her; it felt good to fly after so many days on the ground. She let her feet drop into the snow. "Hey. You made it."

Alyssa nodded. "Yeah. Thank you."

Rogue fished the phone book page and the photograph out of her pocket. "Can you do me a favor?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"You know Remy LeBeau?"

"I've heard of him."

"Ah need you to give him these." She handed over the paper and the plastic bag. "You're one of Delphine's girls, so Ah'm guessin' you know a little somethin' about bein' discreet. Don't read it, don't tell anybody, just give these straight to him. He's got red eyes on black, and red hair in a ponytail, and he wears a long brown coat. You do that for me?"

Delphine nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

"All right, go on. Get outta here."

The loading didn't take very long. Magneto caught her eye only once, and didn't speak to her. He was wearing civilian clothes. Rogue thought maliciously that, stupid as his red-and-purple costume was, trying to seem normal made him look even stupider. She and Kurt stood off to the side until the spheres lunged upwards again, taking the nearly fifty refugees to the safety . . . or at least the less immediate danger . . . of Avalon.

When they were out of sight, Kurt put an arm around her shoulders. "Let's find someplace zat's open, and get some hamburgers, and talk, okay?"

Rogue nodded, once again meekly submitting to his mild-mannered bossing. "Sounds like a plan."

* * *

"It's open, Logan!"

Logan obediently pushed open the door of the room across from his own, where Jean and Laura had been taken. Immediately, he could see why Jean had just TK unlocked the door, rather than standing up and walking over to open it. She and Laura were sitting in the middle of one of the beds, which they'd protected by laying a precautionary bath towel over the bedspread. Both were wrapped in thick white bathrobes, and each one was engrossed in one of the dreadlocks that surrounded Laura's head. Small bits of bracken, carefully picked out of the matted hair, were scattered on the towel. The smell of ginseng conditioner was almost stifling.

"Hi," Jean told him, sparing barely a glance from her engrossing work. "The good news is that so far we haven't found any lice."

"Fantastic," Logan agreed, still trying to work out how Jean could have convinced Laura to hold still and have her head yanked on for two hours with no end in sight. "You having fun, there, Kiddo?"

Laura looked up from the dreadlock she was working on to glare at him.

"I've got a faster way to do that," he offered, popping the claws of his right hand.

Laura went tense as a bowstring, but Jean put a steadying hand on her shoulder. "He's just teasing you. It's okay." She, too, glared at Logan, her bright blue eyes as fierce as Laura's dark ones. "If you wanted to _actually _make yourself useful, you could go find us more conditioner."

He pulled the claws back in, appropriately chastised. "I'll grab you the stuff out of my room to start with."

Ten minutes later, he too was seated on the bed, both hands slimy with conditioner, teasing loose the five months' worth of tangles from Laura's head. Her hair was thick and wiry, like his, which helped a lot; the strands were naturally ruler-straight, and hadn't dreaded easily.

"I'm surprised HYDRA even let you wear your hair this long. I'd have thought they'd keep you buzzed like a U.S. Marine, just to save trouble."

"They told me it was better for disguise and infiltration," Laura told him, as though this were a perfectly normal topic for casual chit-chat.

"I guess that makes sense. With the way you climb and jump, you wouldn't wanna be stuck in a wig. It'd fly right off."

"That'd be embarrassing," Jean observed.

"It helped to keep my head warm, this winter," Laura added, "so it was good that it was long. Insulation."

"That's one word for this stuff," Logan grumbled. "You sure you haven't found anything alive in here yet?"

"Almost positive," Jean assured him. "Just a _lot_ of sticks and leaves."

"More 'insulation'."

"No one's making you help," Jean snipped back at him.

"Ow," Laura snapped, yanking her head away from Logan. "Quit _yanking!_"

"Oh, please. You've got an adamantium skeleton and you're whining about me pulling your hair?"

"In a minute, I'm gonna give you a popped lung to whine about," Laura grumbled, sounding for a moment unsettlingly like Logan himself.

Logan grinned. Was that her _teasing _him back? Of course, it could be an actual threat, but her claws were in and her body was relaxed. Underneath the filth and the violence and the trauma, there might actually be a human being, and that human being might, with a little imagination, even be a teenage girl.

"Nice to see you two are getting along so well," Jean murmured, half to herself. She was smiling faintly, but her attention was focused on a particularly thorny piece of dreadlock that she was teasing apart with her fingernails.

Logan went back to his work, too, being more careful not to pull against Laura's scalp. "I hate to sound crass, but do either of you want to tell me what you did with your clothes?"

"Drying on the shower curtain," said Laura.

"Apparently hand laundry is one of the things you get really good at living in the woods for five months," Jean elaborated.

"I'm surprised that rag bundle you were wearing survived being washed," Logan told Laura. "We're gonna have to find you something else to wear. I'll talk to Mariko."

"Who _is_ Mariko?" Jean asked, glancing up from her work.

"Old friend," Logan told her.

"Oh, that was informative. Thanks."

"The Yashidas are . . . _were_ . . . one of the biggest crime families in Japan. When Mariko's father and older brothers died, she took control of the business and got it phased from illegal to mostly-legal investments. I think they still tax dodge, but hey, nobody's perfect."

"Did you have something to do with the other Yashidas dying?"

"I had something to do with Mariko living."

"So she owes you this favor because you saved her life?"

"Something like that."

"You can just say 'yes,' you know."

"If the answer was just 'yes,' that's what I'd say."

Jean gave a little _hmph _of annoyance at him, and Logan smiled. Annoying Jean always had been way too much fun. And as long as she was annoyed at him, she wasn't worrying about Scott. She needed a break from the tension, and that was something Logan could still give her.

Jean belonged to Scott, and Logan knew it, and wouldn't challenge it, but the sparkle of amusement in her eyes right now belonged solely to him.

"Ha," announced Laura, triumphant, as the last tangles at the base of her dread came loose. She combed her fingers through the full length of her hair, stripping out conditioner peppered with leaf mould.

"One down," Jean announced with satisfaction. "Just all the rest to go."

* * *

Gambit headed downstairs to the kitchen, looking for Magneto and something to eat, not necessarily in that order. He found the public levels in another wave of incoming, semi-controlled chaos. People were everywhere. Many of them were teenagers or young adults like himself, the most common age range for X-gene carriers, but there were middle-aged people, too, and even a few who looked like they could be grandparents. And there were little kids.

The little kids nonplussed him. Why so young? No kids that young could possibly have already manifested, not without a massive infusion of rare, experimental drugs.

He found Magneto and Xavier in the dining room, sitting at one of the smaller tables and talking to a woman with one child nestled under her arm and another one distending her abdomen from the inside.

"Any day," she was telling them. "I just . . . I figured it was the lesser of two evils. I registered as soon as the database opened, because the law's the law, but last week I checked, and Tyler and Christina were suddenly on there, too. I never gave consent for them to be registered. That information's only in their private medical records."

"They're becoming bolder," said Charles. "Accessing medical records without a warrant . . ."

"Would that be more or less illegal than when they detonated explosives against the wall of your front room?" asked Magneto, his tone almost painfully dry.

Charles ignored him. "You have to be aware that our medical resources here are very, very limited. If you were to go into labor and something were to happen, we couldn't guarantee the safety of the baby."

The woman laughed, her voice shaky and a little panicked. "I've already had three kids without any problems. Right now, I'm a lot more scared of the U.S. Government than of labor."

Magneto looked up, acknowledging Gambit for the first time.

"Do you need something, Gambit?" asked Professor Xavier, not unkindly.

"I'll handle it, Charles," Magneto interrupted, standing up from the table. "Outside," he ordered Gambit, indicating the hallway.

As soon as they were well out of sight and hearing, Gambit asked, "Xavier's not in de loop, den?"

"I told you: I want to control the flow of information. And I don't trust Charles any more than he trusts me."

"Dat's rich."

"You've been training under him for some time now. Have you yet to encounter something that he _won't do_ if he thinks it's right?"

Gambit thought for a moment, but didn't answer.

"What did you need?"

"A drop," said Gambit. " I'm gonna grab three hours' sleep and den I need t'be in Austin. _C'est bon?_"

"That can be arranged," Magneto told him. "I'll meet you in the hangar in three hours." He turned his back and returned to the cafeteria.

Gambit was heading off the other way when there was a footstep behind him, and something slipped into his hand.

He snapped his head around and saw a skinny blonde girl slinking away from him. He reached out and caught her by the shoulder. "Hey. Wha's dis?"

"The woman told me to give it to you, _Monsieur_ LeBeau," said the girl under her breath. She reached up to her face and brushed her fingers from her forehead down to her cheek, tracing the path where Rogue's white stripe usually fell.

"_Tu me connais le nom?_" Gambit asked, switching fluidly into French.

She nodded. "_Je suis de chez Delphine._" Her own speech was shaky and thickly accented; English was obviously her first language.

"_De chez Delphine?_" Gambit repeated, bewildered. Delphine's place was back in New Orleans. This last pickup was supposed to be in Chicago, wasn't it?

He glanced down at the papers in his hand. One was a torn page from a phone book; the other a photograph in a ziploc bag.

He flipped it over. Christine LeBeau's steady gaze fixed on him from the yellowing portrait.

Remy felt his breath catch. He hadn't seen this picture in more than seven years. His father had locked it up in his private safe after the cancer took her. Only a member of his family could have laid hand on this picture. His family. Pere, Memere, and Bobby.

Rogue had seen them. Which meant she'd been in New Orleans. And the only reason she could have had for going to New Orleans . . . the only mutant she could have gone there to track down . . . was his assassin ex-wife.

She was angry enough at him to burn his soul with the touch of her mouth, but she still had gone to look after his people as though they were her own.

For the first time since he'd fallen asleep in his own bed on the night of the attack, just for a second, Remy felt warm. Warm and safe. He didn't deserve that girl.

He slipped the picture and the paper into his pocket, to look at again when he was sure of a moment of privacy. "_Merci_," he told the young woman from Delphine's, taking her hand and shaking it earnestly. Delphine's girls, he knew, rarely got handshakes. "You done me a great kindness, Miss."

"Glad to," she told him, finally working up the courage to smile. "The other girls say real good things about you, about how you was always a friend and never a client. Said you were the best Pincher the Big Easy ever spawned."

Gambit grinned. "Got dat right."

His mind flickered back for a second . . . to the assistant guildmaster in New York and his smart mouth, to the rumors the man had suggested were flying through the gossip chain about Remy's Mark and how much he deserved it.

"So if you'll 'scuse me, I gotta go prove it."

* * *

French Lessons:

_C'est bon? _Is that good?

_Tu me connais le nom? _You know my name?

_Je suis de chez Delphine: _I'm from Delphine's Place.

Okay, so the January deadline went flying by, it's true, but the splendid news is that my writing bug is back! My life is in order and I'm finding time to sit down with my GoogleDocs, and finally, _finally_, reward my readers' excellent patience. Hang in there, folks.

Seri


	30. Chapter 30

Chapter 30

* * *

Rogue stared morosely into her third cup of coffee. Kurt was working on his second enormous reuben. Because sleeping schedules on Avalon were anything but straightforward, Kurt had slept through part of the afternoon and was now fresh as a daisy, while Rogue had been traveling all day and was exhausted. She took another mouthful of coffee.

She'd told Kurt everything . . . about Gambit and their fight, about her detour to New Orleans, everything that Bobby had told her about Senator Creed. Kurt, in turn, had brought her up to speed on Kitty's adventures with the US Armed Forces. He'd been sure to place special emphasis on Amanda's heroic role in the whole mess, and described her hollering in Magneto's face with no small degree of obvious satisfaction.

"I asked Gambit to vatch out for her," he mused, wiping Reuben sauce off his chin.

"Don't worry," Rogue assured him. "If he promised, he'll do it or die trying. He don't make promises unless he dang well intends to keep 'em. She's fine."

"I know." Kurt put down the sandwich, which was odd, because Kurt rarely put down food he was in the midst of eating. "But . . . vhat if Scott's trial fails? Vhat if Magneto starts his war? Vhat vill he do zen?"

"Ah dunno." Rogue felt the coffee mug crack in her hand; she let go of it a second too late. Coffee leaked from the compromised porcelain onto the table. She hurriedly swallowed the last mouthful left in the bottom of the cup. "Ah dunno what he'll do. And that freaks me out. It really, really scares me tuh death. Ah'm inside him . . . not even just inside his mind or his thoughts, but his _heart_ . . . at least ten times a day. Ah know _everythin' _he feels. But if _he _doesn't know what he's gonna do, how can Ah? He's _so angry_ about the attack on the house . . . it's the kind of anger that burns, so you'll do anythin' to make it stop. He might do _anythin_', Kurt."

"Anything except break a promise. An' he promised t'be an X-Man."

"Only for as long as he wants t'be. He's got a careful, detailed contract with the prof. He can quit whenever he wants."

"He wouldn't switch sides an' leave you behind, though."

"He would if he thought Ah was gonna give in an' come with him eventually."

"But he can't sink zat. He reads your heart just like you read his, right?"

"Yeah, but . . ." Rogue trailed off, then snarled her frustration and let her head fall back against the vinyl padding of the booth bench. "Ah wish Ah was a lot surer of mahself than Ah am right now. Ah'm just as angry as he is in a lotta ways. If Ah had that scumbag Creed here right now, Ah'd probably rip off his head and kick it intuh orbit."

Kurt flinched, an expression of personal hurt projecting on his holographic face. "Rogue, haven't you sought about Senator Creed? Who he is? Vhat Sabertooth said? If Mystique was his mom . . . he's our _brother_."

"_Your_ brother," Rogue snapped. "Ah'm only adopted into this freak-show family." As soon as she'd said it, she wished she'd held her tongue, but it was too late to take it back now. "And what is it with you and families anyway? You got parents, you got a last name, you got a girlfriend who'll follow you intuh Hell, what else do you want? But if Creed gets his way, Ah'm gonna have _nothin'. _He already took away the house, and school, and safety . . . Scott's gone, Logan's who-knows-where, the Professor's been muzzled lahk a dog, Remy's slippin' away from me. The team's fallin' apart, Kurt. Ah'm even losin' you now."

Kurt reached across the table and grabbed her hand. She could feel his three thick, strong fingers pressing through her glove. Misfits, both of them, with hands that had to be hidden like shameful secrets. "You vill _never_ lose me. Even if ze X-Men do fall apart. You vill _always_ have me."

Rogue smiled ruefully. "Even if Ah do kill Creed?"

"You von't."

"How do you know?"

"Faith."

Kurt let her go and pushed his plate away. "Come on. Let's find someplace to get some sleep. You really need it."

"Yeah," Rogue admitted. "Ah really do."

* * *

As messed up as everything was right now, as much as he wanted to be in his own home and in his own bed, Gambit had to admit that it felt good to be off the leash.

The data center in Austin was quiet and calm. Every now and then a night guard would swing by, but they weren't even carrying guns and didn't have any motivation to check above the foam ceiling tiles, where Gambit soundlessly disappeared every time he heard footsteps. This was good, old-fashioned _fun_, the kind he never got to indulge in back at the Institute. Professor Xavier had very decided ideas about _the law_, which Gambit put up with because that was the price of his membership in the X-Men. But oh, did it feel good to get out for a while, to deprogram a security system, dodge a guard, pick a lock. It gave his restless mind something to think about besides the problem of Rogue . . . the prize he couldn't steal, the lock he couldn't open.

_Ace of Spades,_

_I miss you._

_Queen of Hearts_

How did that girl make him so crazy with three words and a couple of playing cards?

The note was in one of the many pockets of his coat; he didn't trust Magneto enough to leave it hidden somewhere in Avalon. Even as he combed through the workstations, looking for someone who'd left their computer password written on a Post-It, the back of his mind was going through one idea after another of how to respond. She hadn't said _I'm sorry,_ or _I was wrong,_ or _Let's talk,_ or _Love you, too._ She hadn't given up an inch of ground. But she'd reached out. That was something.

The password was located in due course. He booted up the computer, tossing his coat over the screen and his head to hide the light. Every workplace had protocols, most of which were boring enough that people regularly forgot them and had to be reminded by mass e-mail.

How convenient that e-mail was searchable these days.

A couple of searches found him what he was looking for. _Thank you for all your hard work . . . just like to remind the team that A1 restricted data is not to be saved either on the server or on your individual computers. All encrypted discs must be checked into the main safe by close of business . . ._

Gambit cursed. Safes! He'd been anticipating a secure server, so he could pull out a few motherboards and let Forge and the new influx of mutant technophiles get the information off of them. A safe was another problem. Even for master thieves, safe-cracking was a specialized skill, something to be contracted out.

He didn't have a safe-cracker with him. They didn't fit well in pockets.

He could, of course, blow the thing. It was easy, quick, and effective. It was also loud. It would mean a grab-and-go ransack of the safe's contents, then a mad dash out of here, during the course of which he might be shot again. Even if it wasn't a fatal shot, it would still be inconvenient.

"No hurry or anything, Trailer Trash."

Gambit jumped clear up onto the desk, yanking the coat from his head.

Sabertooth was standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame and smiling just enough to show off his mutated teeth.

"Jumpy, ain't we?" he observed, letting his tongue snake out to wet his lower lip.

Gambit took two slow breaths to bring down his heart rate. "WHAT de _hell_ is you doin' here in de middle of my job?"

"The boss doesn't want you dying. Beats me why. But he brought me down to watch your back. Told me not to let you know."

"And yet here you stand."

"I got bored."

Gambit took another breath; his heart rate still wasn't down.

Well, if that wasn't just typical of everyone involved. Magneto didn't trust anyone, and hedged every bet. Sabertooth did what he was paid to do, but messed with it enough to remind everyone that he was not under anyone's control, even possibly his own. He'd dealt with both these men for many long, irritating months—he should have seen this coming. He was absolutely off his game.

"So are you done yet?" Sabertooth asked again. "If we get back before they start makin' breakfast, I'm gonna try bustin' open the cabinet where they keep the cooking booze."

Involuntarily, Gambit recoiled in disgust. "You'd _drink_ dat? De stuff in dat cabinet got put dere 'cause it ain't fit to drink!"

Sabertooth shrugged. "It's that or the rubbing alcohol."

Gambit had a healthy respect for quality liquor; this attitude was intolerably offensive, so much so that for a minute his worries about being spied on and having a safe to bust took a back seat. "You is flat-out disgustin'."

"Well, I don't see you buying the first round. In fact, you're not doing anything. I thought you were supposed to be a big-shot criminal now."

Sabertooth hadn't moved from his casual, yet menacing position in the doorway. He seemed comfortable with the prospect of standing there all night, whether Gambit saw fit to do any big-shot thieving or not. Any chance of finishing this job in private was long gone.

But maybe it wasn't all bad. He needed a quiet, non-explosive way to break open a safe . . . and he had in his pocket an unbreakable bladed adamantium staff, and in front of him a lot of raw muscle power. Annoying, but convenient.

He hopped down from the desk and turned to power down the computer. "Tell you what," he proposed. "You lend a little muscle to crackin' open dis safe I gotta deal wid, an' I'll treat y'to a round a'somethin'."

"Make it a bottle."

"Bottle minus de first glass, of which I is most sorely in need," Gambit countered. As he moved the cursor up to close the e-mail program, one additional subject line caught his eye.

_Re: Incarcerate Transfer_

He clicked it open.

_After consulting with the USAF, it has been decided that Mutant M3516529 (Danvers, Carol) will not be transferred to Mutant Registration Division custody. The Air Force is allocating a section of Malmstrom AFB for the custody of mutants on active military duty. Please forward information on active-duty incarcerates to 3439493 __._

Gambit grinned. "Jackpot."

He knew Carol Danvers. He didn't _like_ Carol Danvers, but that was due to a unique set of circumstances that weren't really her fault (not his, either, of course), and he knew a windfall when he saw one. He grabbed a pen from a mug on the desk and scribbled _Malmstrom_ on the back of his hand. On second thought, he jotted down the e-mail address as well. They might be able to hack it.

"In your own sweet time," Sabertooth told him.

"Had to stop a sec to grab my girl a present," Gambit told him as he shut off the computer.

Sabertooth snorted contemptuously. "Whipped."

"Mmm," said Gambit, not in agreement, but with the implication that the insult didn't merit a reply. "All done. Let's crack dis box an' git on home."

It wasn't the diamond earrings he'd wanted to bully her into wearing, but it was still a gift, a fitting answer to the photograph she'd sent to him. She protected his ex-wife; he'd protect her mentor. And maybe the exchange of kindnesses would hold them together where words and touch had failed.

* * *

Professor Xavier dismissed class.

With the new arrivals, they had a total of nine telepaths on Avalon. The older ones were self-trained, and most of the younger ones weren't trained at all. Telepathy without training led almost inevitably into mental instability or chemical dependence, often both . . . anything to make the voices stop. And so Charles Xavier, in these extreme and bizarre circumstances, on a space station orbiting the planet, had settled in and started doing what he did best. He taught.

"Please remember that class will begin tomorrow at nine precisely, and that we're running on Eastern Daylight Time. Excellent work today, everyone. Thank you."

The students stood up . . . chairs were at a bit of a premium, so most were sitting cross-legged on the floor . . . and offered friendly acknowledgment on their way out of the room.

"Thank you, Mr. Xavier."

"Thank you, sir."

"Thanks."

Betsy was the last to leave. "Do you need me for anything else, Professor?"

"How's your head?" he asked, smiling. He'd press-ganged her into service as a teaching assistant, since Jean still wasn't back to help out.

"Hurting," she admitted, belying the discomfort with a chuckle. "I didn't realize I was so out of practice."

"That's an odd declaration for someone who . . . last time I checked . . . was drilling martial arts for four hours every day."

Betsy laughed. "That's different. That's _fun. _Given the choice, I'd rather be practicing martial arts than just about anything else. I don't feel the same drive with telepathy. It's useful, but not compelling. At least, not to me." She shrugged. "Sorry."

"Of course you shouldn't be _sorry_. I'm proud that you have the self-determination to not let yourself be defined by your powers if you don't want to be."

"That's all very well and good, but right now I'm wishing I'd be a little more accepting of my fate. Maybe I wouldn't have such a splitting headache now."

"Go lie down someplace quiet," Professor Xavier told her, smiling. "You'll be fine in an hour or two. And by the end of the week headaches will be a thing of the past."

"From your mouth to God's ears," Betsy invoked. "Good morning."

This last was addressed to Hank, who had just come in.

"Good morning, Betsy," Hank answered cheerfully. He was carrying a thick and rather disorganized sheaf of papers in one hand.

"Paperwork," Betsy observed. "I'm off. If you need me, ask somebody else." She made her exit.

"Is she all right?" Hank asked. He didn't know Betsy well, and her dry sense of humor could be off-putting.

"She's fine. Headache. What do you have?"

"Organization." Hank set the papers down on the workroom table. "Most of it I can't take credit for. Bobby's done the bulk of the data collection, and he and Amanda have been tackling the arrangement of everything. I just wanted to run it all by you and see if you had any thoughts."

He pulled one of the papers out of the stack. "It needs a lot of fine-tuning, but here's the rough schedule. We've set aside blocks of time for classes and training, regular meals, and quiet hours so everyone can get decent sleep if they're inclined to. Everyone has a job . . . or will; there's a lot that still needs to be worked out . . . but students have less work, and the parents with very young children have hardly any, unless they want to. Most anyone who can generate power takes a turn recharging the station's core—"

"You may want to switch a few of these," Charles interjected. "If you group together those with similar abilities, Eric won't have to reconfigure the equipment so often."

"Good point." Hank made a note on the paper. "And beyond that, we've been sorting people by vocation. We've got a good number of educators, so we should be able to have some semblance of normalcy as far as schooling is concerned. One of our new arrivals, praise be, manages a warehouse, so we've asked her to be in charge of supply inventory."

"Excellent."

"I'm thinking about assigning Fred Dukes to her team. I haven't yet seen the box he can't pick up, and it'll do him good to have some responsibility."

"Not to mention to spend some time away from his cohorts."

"True. He's not a bad kid, but those Brotherhood boys bring out the worst in him."

"What have you assigned to the others?"

"I'm not too sure. The only thing I'm certain of is that we're keeping Toad out of the kitchens."

"Excellent idea. Eric might have a better idea of where they'd be useful; he knows them better than we do."

"True."

"Hank, I am genuinely and sincerely impressed. Having a routine, and responsibilities, will go a long way towards returning some sense of normalcy around here."

"True," Hank said again, but his tone was darker. "But is that what we want?"

Professor Xavier sat back in his chair, silently encouraging Hank to continue.

"Have you seen Magneto these last few days? And how the new arrivals are acting around him? They're not afraid of him. He's the merciful benefactor who dropped out of the sky and gave them a refuge from danger. He's even taken to wearing ordinary clothes. He looks like a college professor!"

"You're suggesting that this is a step down from scarlet and purple?"

"I'm suggesting that it could be a problem. Charles, can't you see what he's doing? To borrow a phrase from Gambit . . . he's stacking the deck."

Charles was silent. He didn't want to think it, didn't want to say it, but someone had to and he was, in a strange way, glad that Hank had taken that responsibility.

"What will happen up here if Scott loses his case? We'll have to arm for war . . . our people versus his. And these refugees won't see him as a genocidal terrorist intent on destroying the world as they know it . . . all they see is a reasonable man who tried to settle this by peaceful means and failed. And war on the humans will seem so . . . sensible. So justified. We are going to be grossly outnumbered, and not just by humans. By our own kind, too."

"Humans _are_ our own kind," Professor Xavier corrected gently.

Hank sighed. Charles didn't blame him. A slip of the tongue like that was suddenly so easy . . . and its implications were suddenly so frightening.

"I have faith in Scott," Hank insisted, sounding apologetic. "But we need to plan for all the possibilities."

"I can't."

"I know you have a deal with _him_, but if all hell breaks lose, there's no way Magneto will be able to hold you to it. We need you, Charles."

"I _can't_. My good faith is all that's protecting our students right now. If I give any indication that I plan to be involved in the fighting, Eric may dissolve the deal and start his war without waiting for the outcome of Scott's trial." Charles reached out and grasped Hank's large, heavy, hairy hand. "You're perfectly right, my friend. Someone needs to plan for all the possibilities. But that someone cannot be me."

Hank sighed. "I don't suppose that planning could wait until Logan gets back?"

"I wish it could. I'd like to pause the whole situation until Logan gets back."

"Still no word from him or Jean?"

"Nothing." Charles forced a smile. "So until further notice, I'm afraid you and Storm are the ones in charge. Congratulations."

"In charge," Hank echoed dully, then he chuckled. "Charles Xavier. When I met you, I was just a humble grad student. What happened to those days?"

Charles smiled. "You grew up."

"Too soon."

"As is always the case."


	31. Chapter 31

Chapter 31

* * *

"No," said Royal.

"What was wrong with that one?" Scott demanded.

"When we're trying to establish character, there's a long list of words the jury should never hear coming out of your mouth. At the top of that list is the word 'lie'."

"I did lie!" Scott protested. "I lied a lot. Practically every day. For years. I had to."

"Why?"

"Because my powers were too big and too dangerous for people to know about. Because nobody would believe me. Because I was trying to live as normal a life as I could. Because if I was publicly outed as a mutant, then Jean would be next . . . my best friend in the world."

"Good. Yes. All of those are great, except maybe 'dangerous.' So try it again. The prosecutor asks, 'Did you lie to Paul Fischer?' and you say . . ."

Scott sighed, checked his upcoming sentence for forbidden words, and said, "I did keep my abilities secret from him. It was really hard. But anonymity was the only defense we had back then, and I didn't want to give him the burden of having to keep such a huge secret along with us."

"Stop avoiding the question! Did you lie to Paul Fischer?"

"I wish I hadn't had to! It was the only way to keep us all safe."

"Good!" said Royal, dropping the bullying tone of his prosecuting-attorney persona. "Good, good, good. You're getting the hang of it now."

"I sound passive-aggressive."

"No, you sound like a good guy in a horrible situation, which is what we need you to sound like. Because that's what you are. Remember that? Remember how that's true? Focus on that. We don't have a lot of time to whip you into shape for the witness stand, so I need you to concentrate."

"I'm concentrating," Scott promised. He scrubbed at his eye with the heel of his hand. Both eyes were starting to itch. He'd forgotten about this particular annoyance; this was the longest he'd kept his eyes closed since middle school.

"We were lucky to get hold of Paul. Practically everyone you know is on the run from the law, so we've got to make everything we can of the character witnesses we can find." Royal trailed off, then asked sympathetically, "How're your eyes?"

"They're okay."

"And your jaw?"

"Better." Scott rubbed the spot of dull aching that marked where his filling was. "Ibuprofen is my new best friend."

"Want me to smuggle you in a razor blade so you can snort it?"

Scott laughed. "I appreciate the thought, but that's probably not the world's best idea. I'll just keep swallowing it for now." He set both hands on the cold metal surface of the visitor's room table and concentrated hard on not touching his face anymore. "Besides, guards keep coming to check on me like every twenty minutes or so. I'd never be able to chop up a whole pill in that time without taking off the tip of my finger."

"Good," said Royal.

"Why is that good?"

"It means they took me seriously when I demanded you get put on suicide watch."

Scott recoiled. "_Suicide watch?_ What the heck? You think I'm going to try to kill myself?"

"Not even a little bit," Royal told him placatingly. "But I do think other people in this prison have got it in for you. I'd hoped it was just the one idiot who put you in a gym full of convicts without permission, but preliminary investigation is suggesting that it's bigger than that. The CO responsible swears up and down that he got ordered by his supervisor to put you in the gym, and the supervisor swears he got a memo from the warden's office, and the warden's secretary says he typed up the memo because of instructions from the clinic, and the clinic says they got a phone call from your floor supervisor . . . either this is the most incompetently run jail in America, or the staff are all covering for each other. That's what we call a conspiracy."

"So you put me on _suicide watch_?"

"So we've got somebody checking every fifteen minutes that you're still alive, and that nobody's tried to torture you into opening your eyes again. I know it's a pain, but it's the only tool I've got for keeping you safe, Kid. So if you don't like it, you may have to lump it."

Scott grudgingly had to admit that this made sense. "I can put up with it, I guess. It's only a couple of weeks, right?"

"Knock on wood, if you can find any."

"And the case is still looking okay? We're gonna win this thing, right?"

"Don't you worry. It's coming together beautifully. We've got every tech expert we can find going over and over the camera footage, and it's solid. There are like five layers of validation encryption on it, or something. I don't know, it's all technobabble to me, but they're very excited and very definite."

"Forge put it in, so I'm not even a tiny bit surprised."

"We're starting jury selection tomorrow, which is gonna be a mess. I don't know if there are twelve people left in the country who can even pretend to be impartial on this case. The internet's been going nuts, with mutant's rights folks and pro-Registration folks going after each other on every message board they can find, and the news has gotten so partisan it's downright embarrassing. I know you're not having any fun stuck in here with guards watching you bore yourself to death, but you're lucky to be out of the mud-slinging. At least for now."

Scott sighed, reached up to scrub at his eyes again, thought better of it, and put his hand back on the table. "But my team's still out there."

"And the girlfriend," Royal observed sympathetically.

"She's all right," Scott insisted. "She's a lot tougher than I am."

"Tougher than _you_ are? You've got to introduce me to this Wonder Woman someday."

Scott laughed. "The second we get that 'not guilty' verdict, I promise I will."

"Good. I like tough women."

"Hey, watch it!"

Royal laughed. "Sensitive much, Mister Summers?"

"Just keep your imaginary hands off my girlfriend."

"A man can dream, can't he?"

"Not about a telepath, he can't. _Believe _me."

"Ouch. Good point."

Scott sagged back in his chair, grinning. _Jean, are you there? Earth to Jean . . . you've got another fan._

No answer. Well, that wasn't unexpected. Sometimes she could hear him, and sometimes she couldn't. But the thought of her, and her presence in the conversation, made everything easier. His eyes had stopped itching, and he was laughing. Even when they were too far away to speak, she still made his life better.

"Scott? Still with us?"

Scott sat up. He couldn't make himself stop smiling. "Yep, I'm here. Let's work."

Royal drilled him for what felt like a long time . . . he had no idea how long, since _time_ was getting very abstract in his black, clock-free world . . . then bid him an inappropriately cheerful goodbye and left with a promise to bring some books in Braille tomorrow.

Scott was escorted back to his solitary cell, where the door clanged shut behind him.

He hated metal doors. They made such a lonely, depressing sound as they closed.

He followed the wall over to his bunk and sat down. Now alone and at leisure, he could reach farther, yell louder into the telepathic silence. _Jean! Can you hear me? _

She could be anywhere, but he knew that her range was tremendous when the conditions were right—she'd once heard him yelling for help all the way from Mexico, and that was a long time before she'd started her telepathy/telekenisis stretching exercises.

No answer. She hadn't been in contact for quite a while now. Although he knew Jean was perfectly capable of taking care of herself . . . far more capable than he was, in fact . . . it was hard not to worry, especially when there was absolutely nothing else to do.

He flopped back onto his bunk and stared through his eyelids at the ceiling.

Why hadn't he married her by now?

There were lots of reasons, of course. The thought had crossed his mind more than once, but it was easy enough to put off. They were both too young, there was always too much going on, he was still in school and relying on Professor Xavier for his support, she was on her way to medical school, problems, complications, not the right time, stalling, excuses, blah, blah, blah.

Well, if he was waiting for the end of the world, it had come and gone.

_When I see her again_. The promise solidified in his mind as soon as he thought it. He didn't have a thing in the world to offer her . . . not even a ring . . . but there was no point in waiting a second longer than necessary. When he got out of this prison, whether he was going home or going to war, he wanted to face it with Jean by his side.

He chuckled to himself. Fresh out of jail, no visor, no ring, with his bruised face and his throbbing jaw . . . this was going to be the worst proposal in the history of the world. Jean would probably think it was hilarious.

* * *

Jean woke up screaming.

She couldn't help it. It was hard to keep one's cool when jolted out of deep sleep by someone screaming bloody murder only a few feet away. "Laura!"

Laura was thrashing in her blankets, screaming so horribly it sounded as though she'd rip her throat open. When Jean flipped on the light, she could see that the younger girl's eyes were squeezed tightly shut.

"Laura, wake up!" Jean kicked her own blankets off and scrambled across to the other bed. "Wake _up_! You're having a nightmare!"

Laura gave her such a kick she was sent reeling onto the floor. Gasping to draw air back into her squashed lungs, Jean struggled to her feet. "Laura!"

_Let me in! _Logan's voice resounded in her head, barely audible over the ear-splitting noise. Jean obeyed without question, on reflex, her TK reaching across the room to grab the bolt of the door and wrench it backwards.

The door slammed open and Logan was suddenly there, grabbing Laura's thrashing shoulders and forcing her down into the mattress. "Laura," he snapped at her, his voice loud, deep, and inappropriately calm. "Laura. Laura. _Laura._"

"AAAAAHH!" With the kind of rasping shriek that would have been more appropriate coming from a great cat, Laura lunged up, slipping free of Logan's grip, and buried all four claws into his torso up to her knuckles.

Logan snarled, and Laura gasped.

Jean scrambled for the bedside lamp and switched it on.

The weight of Laura's upper body was hanging from her arms, both fists still pressed against Logan's bare chest. Dark, viscous blood was pouring over her hands and onto the blankets. The t-shirt she'd been sleeping in, a white, oversized thing with 'I 3 SEOUL' printed across the front, was already drenched, and her skinny chest was heaving underneath it. Her combed hair hung in disarray around her face, but through the gaps Jean could see her eyes, wide and unfocused.

Laura screamed again, but it was a startled, sudden shriek, a natural reaction to waking up and finding herself elbow-deep in Logan's blood.

Logan's jaw was clamped shut, his lips pulled back and his face screwed up against the pain. With deliberation, he took hold of her left wrist and yanked her claws out of his body. Blood gushed from the now-unblocked holes.

As all three of them struggled for breath, the first words out of Jean's mouth somehow ended up being, "What a mess."

Logan laughed, or tried to—the movement pressed a fresh spurt of blood out of his chest. Laura finally gathered the presence of mind to retract her claws. As soon as he was free, Logan rolled over onto his back, settling in to lie perfectly still until the pain and the bleeding stopped.

Jean came around to the other side of the bed so she could gather up a handful of the bedspread and press it into the wounds. Logan hissed, but she didn't let up on the pressure.

"Bad dream, Kid?" he asked at last.

Laura swallowed nervously. Her drenched hands were quivering. "I didn't mean to," she choked.

"Course you didn't. Don't you worry . . . there's no harm done." He reached up behind his head and squeezed her knee through the blood-soaked blanket. "You're okay. Take it easy."

"I could've killed you."

"Ha. In your dreams."

"Yes," said Laura, flatly.

Jean reached out telepathically. _Show me your dream,_ she requested. _I can block the memory, if you want._

She expected to be rebuffed and glared at, but to her surprise Laura's mind opened wide. She saw images that hadn't come from her own imagination flash into her brain — guns, and needles, and a little boy of maybe six years old with terror in his eyes. Adults in lab coats and uniforms watched a person in a hazard suit take Laura by the wrist and use her claws to remove Logan's head.

Jean felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Bracing herself against Logan's chest (he hissed again, but she ignored him), she pushed the memories back into Laura's mind, as deep as she could go, burying them at the bottom of the younger girl's subconscious where not even her dreaming mind could access them.

When she broke her concentration and opened her eyes, she saw Laura watching her. She wasn't crying, wasn't glaring . . . in a strange, unfamiliar way, the look communicated frank gratitude, though not a muscle in her face had moved.

Jean nodded in acknowledgment, then turned her attention back to Logan and lifted the blanket to see if the wounds had closed yet. Two were still open, and blood welled up when she removed the pressure, but the flow was slow and small.

"It'll stop in a second," Logan assured her. He got his elbows underneath himself and eased up into a sitting position.

"Can you stand up?" Jean asked gently.

"Gimme one good reason."

"I want to get these blankets off the bed before the blood soaks through onto the mattress."

He sighed. "Well, it ain't a good reason, but it's a reason." He swung his legs down until his feet hit the floor, then gingerly stood.

"Laura, you go jump back into the shower. Most of that will come right off if you don't let it dry on you."

There was a moment, just barely too long, in which nothing happened.

"Go on, Kid," Logan ordered.

Laura squirmed out of the bloody blankets and scrambled into the bathroom.

As soon as the door closed, Jean let out her breath in one rush. "Logan, she could have—"

Logan put a finger to his lips, then touched his ear. Laura could still hear them. "Go get that shirt outta my room. She can sleep in that. And grab me a wet towel or something so I can get this crap off me."

Jean nodded. "Okay."

The door to her room was still open, as was the door to his across the hall. It only took Jean a few minutes to find the t-shirt among the pile of things they'd bought for him yesterday, in the underground mall that connected to the hotel's basement levels, and to dampen a monogrammed towel with warm water from the tub. When she came back, she could hear the shower running. She tapped on the bathroom door, then eased it open and hung the shirt on the towel rack. "Clean shirt. Leave that one to soak in the tub and we might be able to save it."

"Yes," said Laura, as though Jean were a superior officer that had barked a command.

Logan was sitting on the dresser, next to the silent television. His breathing was still laboured, although all of his wounds were now closed. Jean TK-grabbed a chair from the other side of the room and pulled it over so she could sit facing him. Conscious of the tenderness caused by internal bleeding, she gently wiped a clean swathe in the mess of drying blood on his chest.

"I can do it," Logan told her, reaching for the towel.

Jean grabbed it out of his reach, annoyed. "You let Rogue do this for you, you can let me. Shut up and hold still."

He smiled. "I already got stabbed tonight . . . you really think I need to get bossed, too?"

Jean lowered her voice, counting on the noise of the shower to keep her words incomprehensible from the other room. "I think if you hadn't made it here in time, this would have been me instead of you. Aren't I allowed to do something for someone who saves my life?"

"You would have caught her before she cut you."

"Maybe. But I'm glad I didn't have to find out." She cleared away another streak of gore, and this time he let her.

"You won't have to find out," Logan finally said, as she eased the towel over the fresh pink wounds in the side of his abdomen. "I'll always make it in time."

Jean smiled. "I know you will."

A few more soaks, and the towel was too bloodied to be of any more use. Logan's skin was more or less clean, so Jean left it at that. Without a word, she bundled the towel with the stripped bed linens and carried the whole mess across to his room, to rinse everything out and leave it to soak in the bathtub.

When she came back, her tank top and pajama pants both damp from the work, she found Logan lying propped up against the pillows of her bed. Laura, dressed in the plain brown t-shirt, was curled up against his side. His arm was around her, and her breathing was deep and even. Jean could read no telepathic flicker off her; she was out cold.

_Amazing,_ she observed, switching to telepathy so as not to risk waking her up. _A few nights ago, she wouldn't even close her eyes when we were in the room. _

_Startin' to trust us, _said Logan.

_Starting to trust you, at least. She really likes you, Logan. And she's already scared to death of losing you._

As soon as she thought the words, she wished she hadn't. It sounded . . . embarrassing. She felt herself blushing. She reached inside her face with her TK and found the capillaries in her cheeks, squeezing them, forcing the rush of blood to recede.

_We can't leave her here, can we. _It wasn't a question, and she didn't give it the inflection of one.

Logan looked down at the little girl curled up against his chest. _No._

Jean sat down at the foot of the bed. Whatever they were going to decide, she wanted the security of knowing she wasn't going to fall over.

_Not right away, at least, _Logan amended. _I was hopin' we could leave in a couple of days, but . . . that's not gonna work. She's gonna hurt someone if we do._

_So what do we do instead?_

_I'll stay here. You can go back to the States, as long as you stay off of that station and out of Sabertooth's way._

_And If I don't go back to Avalon, where am I supposed to go? Home to the mansion? To my parents' house? Or do you want me to just camp outside Scott's prison? _

_Ask Charles. You can get hold of him with the Cerebro once you're close enough._

_So he can find me another 'safe house,' I suppose . . . like your Barbados idea. No, thank you._

_You can still work. You'll have Velocity, so you can get around all right._

_But there's nothing for me to _do_! Nothing but wait. Bite my fingernails to the quick worrying about Scott being tortured and wait for a trial to decide our future. I can wait and worry here just as effectively as I can anywhere else, and I can help Laura, too. You've got her trust, but you're not a telepath. We can help her better together than either one of us can alone. If you stay, then so do I._

Logan looked at her, long and steadily, from across the dark room. The light from the single lamp reflected one yellow spot against each of his dark eyes.

_Thank you,_ he hold her.

Jean smiled. _No, thank _you_. For not arguing with me._

For once?

For once.

He smirked at her. _We'll stay until Mariko's ready to go home to Tokyo, then see what we see. Fair enough?_

_Fair enough. _ Jean stood up, stretching her back. _Well, since you've commandeered my bed, I'll just go use yours. Good night. Holler if you need me._

_Night, Red._

She shut the door gently behind her, pulling until she felt the latch shoot into place. Then she stopped, hesitating, breathing deeply.

Staying here was the right thing to do. It was prudent; it was sensible. Here, she could help both Logan and Laura. There, she could help no one. This was a good decision. And it was what she wanted to do; her stomach twisted with dread at the thought of going back to the country that betrayed her to listen to the public debate on her own humanity. This decision was prudent, and it was desirable. So why was there guilt nagging at the back of her mind?

She took a deep breath, took hold of the blood vessels inside her skull, and stretched eastward as far as she could. _Scott? Scott, can you hear me? _

Nothing but silence.

He'd understand. When she did finally reach him, she'd explain everything. And he'd understand. He'd do the same thing in her position. And anyway, Scott always understood. It was one of the many reasons why she loved him.

She let go of her TK grip too quickly, making her head pound. Drat. She was going to have to practice the release on that. The pain drove her guilt from her mind, and she stumbled across the hallway to Logan's room, and bed.

* * *

The next drop was up a canyon outside of Salt Lake City. The mountains were steep and sheltering, and Rogue flew among them without fear of being spotted from the ground or pinged from the air. Kurt had been handling most of their transportation over the last few days; his power made him so bewildering to any tracking system that there was virtually no risk they'd be followed. She saw the practicality, but chafed at the restraint. Teleporting was slow and repetitive, and she missed the wide-open freedom of the sky.

More refugees, with backpacks and suitcases. More people who drew the genetic short straw and had been dismissed from the human race. More frightened Americans fleeing from the wrath of _her brother_, Senator Creed.

Magneto approached her again. It felt like he snuck up on her, dressed as he was in a knee-length wool coat with a scarf tucked into the collar, just like a few of the men climbing into the transport spheres. "You have a message," he announced bluntly, obviously annoyed at being relegated to delivery-boy. He handed her a piece of paper, neatly folded in on itself. An ace was drawn over the fold.

Rogue snatched it from him with ill grace. "He didn't come with you himself?" The question slipped out without her permission, but her desire to see Gamit there among the crowd of people was almost physically painful.

Magneto raised one dignified white eyebrow. "Did you wish him to?"

"Shut up," she snarled. "That ain't no business of yours."

"Very well. I'll give your next instructions to your brother, who has better manners. I'll see you in Seattle in one week, and we can try again on taming that tongue of yours."

"You wish, pervert."

"Don't flatter yourself."

"Jeesh!" Kurt cut in. "You _guys_! Grow _up_ already!" He turned to Magneto and asked, "Did Professor Xavier send us more names?"

"He did." Magneto produced another folded paper and handed it over. "I will see you in Portland in one week."

"Not LA?" Kurt asked. "Ve vere talking about it, and ve kind of figured LA."

"Possibly next week. We don't want you moving in too many straight lines, or we might find ourselves in the middle of an FBI raid."

Rogue snorted. "Ah say go for it. Ah'd love a chance tuh get some punches in. Blow off some steam."

"For once we are in perfect agreement, but my contract with your teacher precludes that sort of thing. For now. Once that contract is expired, we should talk again."

Rogue felt Kurt's hand on her arm, steadying and restraining. She glanced back at him and caught his look. _Don't._ She clutched the letter in her hand, and held her tongue.

She kept it in hand until the spheres had departed and she and Kurt had retreated into the valley, found a Motel 6, and called it a night. Kurt was out in seconds, snoring gently. Only when she was quite sure that she was absolutely alone did she switch on the bedside lamp and open her letter.

_Ma reine des coeurs,_

_Miss you, too._

_Be nice if that changed anything, hein? _

_You didn't have to do what you done. Merci. _

_Carol Danvers is locked up at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls, MT. Have fun._

_A _

She fell back onto the pillows of her bed and pressed the letter to her chest. It was a melodramatic gesture, embarrassing, but she was alone and didn't care. the piece of paper was a sorry substitute for her strong, living, breathing boyfriend, but it was all she had. That and her ring, which she was suddenly twisting around her finger again.

This was killing her.

Seeing Senator Creed's smug, serene face on every tv and every newspaper was killing her.

To violate the Professor's trust, and break her little brother's heart, would kill her.

_Rogue, cherie_, she thought to herself, reflexively using Remy's pet name for her, _you're gonna get killed one way or another. Just gotta pick your way. _

She didn't get to sleep for another two hours.


	32. Chapter 32

Chapter 32

* * *

Kitty woke up to knocking on the door of the X-Girls' dormitory. She sat up and grabbed for her head scarf. "Who's there?"

"It's me," said Lance's voice from the hallway. "I'm here on official business."

Kitty pulled the first piece of it over her bald head, settling it on her brow and over her ears. "How official?"

"I'm supposed to officially tell you that your turn in the laundry started fifteen minutes ago."

"Oh, _drat_." She fished the straight pin out of her scarf and put it in her mouth while she got the cloth settled around her head and neck. "Thanks for waking me up."

"That's my job."

"What do you mean, that's your job?"

Kitty gave herself a glance-over. She had no clothes to change into; she'd been living and sleeping in the same set of mint scrubs for the last while . . . somehow the word 'days' didn't convey the passage of time on Avalon very well. She'd been hoping to switch these out for a fresh outfit when she was in the laundry today. Still no shoes, but the floors were clean, and she hadn't stepped on anything so far.

"Pietro and I got assigned to . . . look, this is weird. Will you just open the door?"

Kitty got up, hesitated a second to make sure she wouldn't get woozy again, then went to open the door. "Pietro and you got assigned to what?"

Lance was still wearing the gray training uniform he'd borrowed from the X-Jet's supply, but there was a metal thing, like a small upside-down horseshoe, pinned to his shirt. He twisted it so the reflective surface caught the florescent light. "We're in charge of keeping order on the station. Like police, or something."

"We need police up here?"

"Just in case."

Kitty privately worried a little bit . . . Lance? The police? . . . but he looked so proud of himself that she couldn't help smiling. "That's really great, Lance. That's a good job for you."

"So I have to officially escort you to the laundry room, or else I will have to officially arrest you, which means we will have to make a jail to officially throw you in—"

"My _gosh_, Lance! I'm coming already!" Kitty found herself giggling. It felt good. She closed the door of the dormitory behind her and went with Lance to the elevator.

The light in the hallway was . . . weird. Nearly everything in Avalon was lit with high-efficiency LEDs, all a little too white and glaring for Kitty to feel comfortable under. They gave everyone a washed-out, exhausted look. But as she walked up the corridor, flickers of movement drew her eyes. Cool blue light was whipping along the walls, like the light reflected off the surface of a swimming pool.

"What's that?" she asked, reaching out a hand in a futile attempt to touch one of the flickers.

"I dunno," Lance admitted, frowning. "It's been doing that all morning."

"Huh."

The flickers followed them into the elevator, so whatever they were, they weren't localized to the hallway. As the doors closed and the car started to move, the color shifted. Instead of blue, they were surrounded by wavering gleams of dark red. The change lasted until they got out on one of the lower levels, then subsided into blue again.

Two other people were on duty in the laundry . . . a dark-haired, bright-eyed little boy of about thirteen called Julio, and a woman in her forties named Tia. Magneto had 'acquired' (probably stolen) five big front-loading washers, and three of them were spinning loads of bedsheets, blankets, kitchen rags, hospital scrubs, and whatever else Avalon used that was made out of cloth. Julio and Tia were folding a still-warm load of the same, and Kitty sat down to help out. Lance hopped up onto one of the dryers.

"Are you just going to sit there and watch?" Kitty asked, feigning annoyance.

"Yup. You're not supposed to be lifting anything heavy yet, so I have to make sure you don't try moving the loads of wet stuff."

"Then at least get down here and fold something."

He seemed to have been waiting for an invitation; he slid down and sat down next to her, grabbing the first thing that presented itself. This turned out to be a fitted sheet, and Kitty let him struggle with getting it folded flat before she laughed and showed him how to do it right.

The light patterns kept dancing along the walls, and even though they were unexplained, Kitty found them soothing. Every few minutes, the color would shift to red, then settle back into blue.

"Residents of Avalon Station, could I please have your attention?"

It was Professor Xavier's voice, but he was nowhere in the room. The voice had none of the scratchiness that would have indicated a traditional PA system; it sounded like he was standing right there.

"This is just an announcement to test our station-wide announcement capabilities, and I'd like to thank Memorex for volunteering her talents in this capacity."

"Cool," said Kitty.

"I'd also like to reassure you about the light displays that some of you have reported seeing. One of our residents, Karen, went into labor this morning. Karen is photokinetic . . . she manipulates light. Her labor has stimulated her powers. I'd like to ask any of you that practice prayer or other forms of positive energy channeling to keep Karen and her child in your thoughts today."

Tia nodded. "Oh! I get it! The red's the contractions." Her voice had a soft, rolling Spanish accent to it.

The light shifted even as she spoke, maroon glimmers squirming across every wall, the ceiling, and the large pile of still-to-be-folded laundry.

"Yep. If I could make light shows, that's what it would have looked like."

"You have kids?" Kitty asked.

"Three," said Tia, smiling. "All boys. Eleven, nine, and six."

"Are any of them up here with you?"

Tia shook her head, her smile fading. "They're at home with their dad. I e-mailed my parents before I left, to ask them to help out while I'm gone, but . . . who knows how long that's going to be?"

The light shifted back to blue, and Tia let her breath out a bit. "I'm going to be having flashbacks all day now. Poor woman. I'm glad we have this place, but it's no place to be having a baby."

"Do you think they can get her to a hospital on the planet if something goes wrong?" Kitty asked.

"She's registered," said Lance, shaking his head. "Even if she didn't give her real name at an emergency clinic, the light show would give her away."

"And Canada is closing its borders to American mutants," said Tia. "It was on the news yesterday. They've had too many people going north to get away from registration."

"Rrrrgh!" Kitty grabbed a bedsheet in both hands and yanked on it, twisting her fists into the fabric. "I _hate_ this!"

Lance grabbed a flat pillow that someone had tossed in the laundry without pulling off the case. Holding it towards Kitty, he offered, "Need to punch something?"

Kitty let go of the sheet and slugged a couple of respectable hits into the padding. Her third one went straight through, leaving her arm sticking out. She froze, startled, then saw the absurdity of the pillow wrapped around her arm like the world's stupidest bracelet. She reluctantly started to laugh.

Lance, Tia, and Julio all laughed, too. Lance pulled the pillow off of her arm and tossed it back onto the pile. He was grinning. He was so nice-looking when he grinned like that . . .

_Piotr,_ said a voice in the back of her head. Her laugh faltered.

"You okay?" Lance asked.

"Yep," lied Kitty, picking up another sheet.

* * *

Carol wasn't asleep when she heard the whisper, but it startled her anyway. She sat up from her bunk and looked around. A familiar face was smiling at him through the barred window of her cell.

"Hey, Carol!" said Rogue.

"Hey yourself," Carol answered automatically. She stood up and looked out.

Rogue was hovering in the air outside the window, which was on the third floor. Her brother, Kurt, was riding on her back.

"We came tuh rescue you," Rogue announced.

"Well, that's very considerate," Carol deadpanned. "You are aware this is a secure facility, right?"

Ve vere careful," Kurt assured her, "but ve shouldn't hang around to get coffee."

"So here's the big question," Rogue continued. "Would'ja like tuh be rescued the quiet way . . ." She gestured with her head towards Kurt, "or the loud way?" She put a hand on the wall and pushed. Carol heard the beams creak.

She put a hand on the spot where the interior wall of her cell was bulging inward a fraction of an inch. She should have been able to push back, just as hard . . . the wall should have yielded like it was made of rubber.

That was why she was locked up here. If she'd still had her powers, her superiors would never have tossed her under the bus like this. But without them, she was just a waste of resources. If Rogue hadn't . . .

But Rogue hadn't meant to. She'd been robbed of her free will and made to inflict this state of helplessness on Carol. Senator Creed and all his allies had known exactly what they were doing when they declared her a second-class citizen.

"Let's do the quiet way," Carol heard herself saying. "It'll make for a cleaner exit."

Rogue sighed. "Fahne, if you wanna be all boring."

There was a puff of smoke that stank of sulfur, and Kurt was standing next to her. He put a furry hand on her arm. One more puff, a rush of heat, and she was hanging in the air with Rogue's arm wrapped around her back.

The feel of her feet hanging into nothingness . . . the lurch in her stomach as they accelerated . . . the wind whipping at her eyes, her hair . . . it was _glorious. _How long had it been since she'd felt like this? How could she have forgotten how much she needed it? Carol Danvers was flying again.

There were tears in her eyes when they landed among some uninhabited Montana hills a few minutes later, and Carol honestly couldn't tell if they were from the wind or the emotion. She dabbed the moisture away with the shoulder of her shirt and tried to pretend it hadn't happened.

It was no use. Rogue saw. She hesitantly reached out, drew back, then reached out again and finally rested her gloved hand on Carol's arm. "Ah'm so sorry," she murmured, not for the first time. "Ah cain't even . . . Ah'm so sorry."

"It's okay," Carol assured her. "It's not even that, really." This was partly a lie . . . it did sting, seeing Rogue standing there, rich with the power that had once been Carol's. "It's just that . . . when all that happened, and I lost my powers, I got a lot of comfort out of thinking 'Well, at least I can still fly planes.' And now . . ." She smiled, trying to laugh at the irony, not quite succeeding. "Now the Air Force locked me up, after I gave them my _whole life_. I gave them my _life, _and they just threw it away." She felt anger boil up inside her, smothering the sadness. "If I had one hour with those powers back, I'd show that smart-faced senator a thing or two about how scary mutants can be."

"Hey, don't vorry," said Kurt. "I sink you're still pretty scary."

Carol laughed. "Thanks, I guess."

"He thinks it's a compliment," said Rogue. "You kin ignore him, if you want."

Carol smiled, for real this time. "So where do we go from here? Over the border?"

Kurt nodded, grinning. "Vay over."

* * *

"I do _not_ understand what you want me to do!" Laura seethed.

"I want you to only use one hand," Jean repeated. "Two hands is cheating unless you're going to pass to another player or make a shot. See?" She dribbled the basketball a few times, switching it easily from one hand to the other, then caught it and passed to Laura.

The twentieth floor of the hotel was a gym. Rather than stay cooped up in the hotel room with only the nerve-wringing news for company, Jean had decided to teach Laura to play basketball. The court wasn't regulation size, but it was still large enough to work with. Laura's unique worldview was more of a problem.

"I _don't _understand 'cheating'." Laura folded her arms and glared, annoyed and frustrated. "If the objective is to put the ball in the hoop, I should hold it in both hands and run there. Or hold it under my arm. I have a much higher chance of losing it if I don't hold onto it."

"That's the point! It gives your opponent the chance to take the ball from you."

"Why would I give my opponent that kind of opportunity?"

"Because it's a _game, _Kiddo."

Jean turned to the doorway. Logan was standing there, smiling at some private joke. Mariko stood next to him. They'd evidently finished, or at least found a good place to pause, the private conversation that had started before Jean and Laura had woken up.

Logan approached them, holding his hands out for the ball. Reluctantly, Laura hefted it to him, underhand.

"A game is a competition of skill under controlled conditions," Logan explained, using vocabulary that was more likely to make sense to her. "It's not combat. The parameters are very specific. Violating the parameters invalidates the competition."

"It's stupid," said Laura.

"You just say that because you can't do it," he shot back. "All claws, no class."

Laura popped a fistful of claws, glaring a warning. Logan just smirked at her. He dribbled the ball a few times, slowly, casually, enjoying how much it was annoying her.

After about seven bounces, Laura snarled, pulled in her claws, and grabbed for the ball with the required one hand only. Logan swivelled neatly out of her reach, dribbled up the court, and sank a two-point shot. Laura ran after him and rammed into his back, knocking him off balance long enough for her to catch the rebounded ball.

"That's cheating, too," Logan told her, "but one thing at a time." He tried to steal the ball back from her, but she copied the move he'd just pulled on her and danced it out of his reach.

Jean turned to the elderly Japanese lady standing beside her. "Did Logan tell you about what happened?"

"He did," Mariko assured her. Her eyes were following Laura as she and Logan chased one another up and down the court. "You would think, wouldn't you, that so many millions of dollars of military hardware and training would make her a little better at basketball?"

Jean laughed, but her smile faded almost immediately. The images of last night still lingered in her mind: claws and blood, snarls and screams. "I hope you know, ma'am, that you're not obligated to help us . . . to help Laura. We all know how dangerous she is, and how dangerous the people looking for her are. If anything were to happen, because we'd left her in your care . . ." She trailed off, unable to think of an articulate ending to that sentence.

"Thank you for your forthrightness," said Mariko, inclining her head. "There was a time when Logan asked me to take a risk, and I refused. It is not a mistake I would care to repeat." When Jean didn't respond immediately, Mariko turned away from the game to examine her face. "He hasn't told you of our history, has he?"

Jean shook her head. "He likes to keep his secrets."

"Indeed he does. I can understand his reasons, but . . ." She hesitated, studying Jean with her dark, intelligent eyes. "I disagree. Because of who you are, and the position in which you find yourself, you should know."

Jean felt herself recoil a little, startled and unsettled. The position in which she found herself? Even without employing telepathy, she knew that Mariko was not referring to her position as a fugitive from her country or guardian of a psychologically damaged mutant teenager.

She shot a look at Logan, but his attention was entirely focused on the basketball game. Mariko disagreed with Logan. She was willing, even determined, to go behind his back and disclose what he wanted to keep secret. This tiny Japanese woman was either the craziest or the gutsiest person that Jean had ever met.

Did she want to know? If Logan judged it unwise to tell her, should she second-guess him?

Yes.

Jean nodded decisively. "Yes, I should."

* * *

Carol was impressed. The check-in process that had been jury-rigged into existence up here was surprisingly efficient. She only had to kick around the hangar for about ten minutes before one of Xavier's kids got to her.

"Oh, hi, Carol!"

"Hi," responded Carol hesitantly. "I should know your name . . ."

"I'm Jamie," said the kid with a grin. "It's okay, nobody remembers me on their first try. Okay, here we go." He held up a clipboard and clicked his pen importantly. "Name, please."

"Carol Susan Danvers," Carol recited.

Jamie applied himself to writing this down. Before he'd managed more than two letters, an identical Jamie was suddenly standing next to him. With another pen-click, the next Jamie asked, "Handle? Like, Mutant Super-Name?"

"Um . . ." It was a tricky question to be asked when suddenly confronted with a kid-copy, but Carol rallied well. "My Air Force buddies called me Miss Marvel, but that was just a joke."

"It works," said Jamie Two happily. He started writing.

"Are you up here with anyone that you'd like to room with?" asked Jamie Three, clicking his pen open.

"Nope."

"Mutant powers?" asked Jamie One, who had evidently finished writing her name down.

"Nada," said Carol with a self-deprecating smile.

"Right. Any allergies or special medical needs we should know about?"

Before Carol could reply, the un-ignorable bass voice of the man who'd brought her up here cut across the conversation. "In asking, I am aware that I risk provoking another display of Institute/Human solidarity, but if she has no powers, what is she doing up here?"

Carol turned to survey the interloper. He was older than she was, and his bearing indicated that he was in charge even if the question hinted otherwise. She wished futilely for some rank insignia on his sleeve, to let her know if she could tell him to go screw himself or of she had to tell him to go screw himself, _sir. _

"I'd been given to understand that this was a facility for American mutant refugees," she told him, her tense politeness hinting that it would disappear at the slightest provocation. "I am an American mutant refugee."

"With no powers? No physical mutation?"

"Well I've got blue eyes."

The older man glared at her, and the glare was formidable. "Explain yourself, or you will be dealt with."

"I am a mutant," Carol barked. "My powers are temporarily unavailable, but I am still a mutant, and if this is a place for mutants, then I have a right to be here."

Jamie cleared his throat. Two of his duplicates were doing their best to cower behind the third. "This is Rogue's friend Carol. Rogue's got her powers. She's got powers, but Rogue's got them right now."

The man gave Jamie and his explanation a cursory glance, then turned his attention back to Carol. "Is this true?"

"Close enough," Carol told him.

"I had assumed that the donor of the Rogue's increased powers would be dead."

"A lot of people did," said Carol, and she allowed herself a trace of a gloating smile. "I may not have my powers, but I still don't die that easily."

His posture relaxed a little, too; he seemed to appreciate her attitude. "Evidently not. I apologize if I spoke hastily. I was not aware of your unique situation."

Carol shrugged.

"I am called Magneto," he offered.

"Carol."

"If you don't object to my asking," he continued, "have your powers recovered themselves at all since Rogue attacked you?"

"Rogue didn't attack me," Carol corrected. "But . . . no. I haven't felt anything come back."

"Hm." He looked her over critically. It wasn't the appraising look of a man sizing up an attractive woman . . . more the look of a mathematician presented with an intriguing new problem. "I'd like to show you something that may interest you, if you can tear yourself away from being processed by fifteen-year-olds."

Carol turned uncertainly to Jamie. "Anything else you need from me?"

"Not . . . really. Just, um, your room. You're gonna be in 3117. That's dormitory 117 on the third level. When you're ready to go upstairs, just ask anybody with an Institute logo to program your fingerprints into the security system."

"Okay, thanks." She returned her attention to Magneto. "So what do you want to show me?"

What he wanted to show her looked like a vault. An empty metal vault with electrical coils humming, half-dormant, in the walls.

"I designed this over a decade ago," Magneto told her. "I've discovered that certain types of radiation can hyperstimulate the relays in the brain coded by the X-gene. This chamber can produce extremely intense bursts of that radiation. When a healthy mutant is exposed to it, his or her powers expand and develop at a dramatically accelerated rate. A few more doses, and the change stabilizes, becomes permanent."

Carol ran a curious hand around the edge of the chamber's opening. "And what about when a human's exposed to it?"

"I haven't the faintest idea. Humans don't interest me, scientifically speaking. I suppose the best case scenario would be several rather horrific cancers. More likely a quick death from radiation poisoning or burns. But the interesting question is you. If the extra pathways in your brain are still intact, it's possible that this device could stimulate them. Restore your powers."

_Restore your powers._

"I could fly again?"

"Possibly even faster than you could before."

Carol slipped her hand inside the chamber, as though it were filled with something other than ordinary air. She'd touched clouds with that hand.

"I could fly again," she heard herself repeating.

"Or you could die."

Part of her . . . a large part . . . screamed that she didn't care, that a life anchored to the ground was no life at all, that she had to fly _this second _or her heart would break . . . but she heard in the voice traces of hysteria, and her military training kicked in, forcing her to be calm, and rational, and weigh risks with benefits.

"That's a big decision to make," she forced herself to say. "I'll need some time to think it over."

"Of course," Magneto responded graciously. "Take all the time you need."

* * *

Rogue and Kurt were eating lunch at McDonald's when they saw it.

Rogue stopped with her Big Mac halfway to her mouth. "Oh, mah gosh."

"Vhat?" Kurt twisted in his seat to see what she was staring at.

In the corner booth, five high schoolers were just digging into their own meal. One of them, a boy who was sitting at the edge of the bench seat, was leaning back just enough for the inscription on his t-shirt to be clearly read.

_FREE SCOTT SUMMERS_

"Oh, my gosh," said Kurt.

He dropped his food and jumped up out of his chair. Rogue hissed his name and grabbed for his arm, but he'd moved too quickly. He was over at the other table before Rogue could even get her chair out from under theirs.

"Hey, man, nice t-shirt," Kurt observed, by way of introduction.

The kid looked up at him and grinned. "Thanks. You can get 'em online."

"I ordered one, too, but it's not here yet," said the girl next to him.

"Somebody's _sellin' _these?" Rogue asked, finally catching up with Kurt. "And people are _buyin'_ 'em?"

"Yeah, tons," said the boy. "You can get them on, like, Ebay and Etsy and stuff."

"But you're not . . ." Rogue trailed off, scanning the group for some indication of powers being hidden or restrained. There were no gloves, no glasses, no visible mutations of hair or eyes or skin or teeth. "Y'all ain't mutants," she finished lamely.

"My cousin is," said one of the other girls at the table.

"You don't have to be a mutant to think Registration's a load of crap," said the boy wearing the t-shirt. "Creed's a bigot."

"There's gonna be a protest in front of the state capitol on Saturday," said the other boy in the group. "You guys should come. I bet somebody will be selling t-shirts there."

"So people have something to change into after they get squirted with fire hoses," joked the girl whose cousin was a mutant.

"Are they gonna bring in fire hoses?" asked the boy. "Cool."

"Guys, it's almost one," observed the girl who hadn't yet spoken. "We've gotta get back to school or we're gonna be tardy."

Rogue and Kurt retreated to their own table so the students could cram the last of their food and rush back to class.

Kurt was all but glowing.

"It can't be just zem," he told her. "Zere have got to be more." Rogue could hear the _whup whup whup _as his invisible tail lashed back and forth to hit the legs of his chair. "Zere's a counter movement. People are on _our side._ Rogue, zey're on _our side!_"

"Humans are on our side," Rogue echoed. "Ah cain't hardly remember the last tahme Ah had a kind word from a . . ." She trailed off, catching herself. Bobby and Memere were human. It was easy to forget about them, when the word _human_ conjured up images of high school bullies and U.S. Marines.

"Ve're going to win zis," Kurt exulted. "It's going to be all right!"

"Don't git yerself all worked up just yet," Rogue told him, the ever-depressing voice of reason. "It ain't them kids that count. It's the jury. If they rule against Scott, then Magneto's gonna launch his war, and those nice kids are gonna get shot down like animals along with everybody else."

"Not vhile ze X-Men have anysing to say about it," Kurt told her confidently. It was clear that nothing she could say would dampen his buoyant mood. He picked up his burger and dug into it with gusto.

He was right, of course. If Magneto wanted to start a war, the X-Men would be there to stop him. It was what they were trained for . . . what they _had_ to do, or they would cease to be X-Men. And Rogue had to be there with them.

Not because she owed Professor Xavier . . . although she did . . . or because she was loyal to Scott . . . though that was true, too . . . or even because she needed to stick with Kurt, her own brother and only family. Even if they were all gone, she'd still stand up to Magneto. Because she was an X-Man. Because there were good people in the world who didn't deserve to be punished for the crimes of the rest of their species. Because she was a gosh dang superhero, and that was what superheroes dang well did.

The horrible realization slipped out of her mouth almost before it had formed in her mind. "Ah gotta do somethin' about Gambit."

Kurt glanced up at her, his mouth full of burger. "Whoh?"

"Gambit. If war starts, he'll take Magneto's side."

Kurt swallowed. "No, he von't."

"He might. And we cain't let him. He's too powerful. He's got my powers, an' his powers, an' his thief's training, an' our training. Ah cain't let him fight."

"But . . ."

"Ah'm gonna have to stop him."

"How?"

"Ah'll lock him up."

"_How?_"

This one stopped her. Lock up Gambit. Keep him confined somewhere he didn't want to be. For more than fifteen seconds.

Couldn't be done.

"Ah'll think a' somethin'," she insisted.

"Good luck," Kurt told her, not sounding at all as though he actually wished her good luck on her endeavor. "Ze only way you can lock up Gambit is if he's unconscious." Satisfied that he'd made his point, he dunked three french fries in the puddle of ketchup he'd made on the wrapper of his burger and stuffed them all into his mouth.

_If he's unconscious._

The answer burst into Rogue's mind in a flash of terrible inspiration.

"Ah kin do that," she breathed. She wasn't looking at Kurt anymore . . . her eyes were focusing on the empty air as she examined the picture that had just popped into her head. "Ah kin make people unconscious."

"Noh Gambih," said Kurt, his mouth full.

"Yeah, Ah can. He's got mah same powers, but he don't know how to use 'em, not the way Ah do. Ah kin touch people and drain _less_ of their energy . . . ain't no trick at all tuh take _more_. Ah kin take his powers. Ah kin knock him out cold and leave him in a coma until this whole thing's over. Ah kin do it. And that way he _cain't _fight for Magneto."

Kurt swallowed. He stared at her, and for the first time in the conversation, he stopped eating. "Rogue . . . no. You can't. You might kill him!"

Rogue shook her head. "Ah won't. Ah know what Ah'm doin'."

"But vhat if you're wrong? Vhat if you're _right_? You sink he's going to be okay vith you doing zis to him?"

"That's his problem." Rogue grabbed her half-eaten hamburger in both hands and took a huge bite, almost enough to choke her.

"Rogue—"

"Oo you mahn? Ah'm hrying hoo eat!" Scowling, Rogue focused all her attention on the burger and refused to say any more.


	33. Chapter 33

Chapter 33

* * *

"Logan has informed me that you are a telepath," said Mariko, setting down a bowl of clementines on the side table next to Jean's chair. They were in her beautiful and enormous suite, near the top of the tower. Mariko seated herself in the chair opposite and sat very upright, looking, for the first time, a little bit uncomfortable.

Jean nodded. She picked up a clementine, so as not to appear ungrateful, but turned it over in her hands rather than peel it. "That's right."

"Are you able to . . . see . . . memories?"

Jean nodded again. "If you choose to show them to me, yes, I can."

"Would it be more comfortable for you, or would you prefer speech? I don't wish to tax your abilities."

"Oh, don't worry. This would be easy for me. If you'd rather just show me, that's not a problem at all."

Mariko bowed her head and looked at the carpet, seeming almost embarrassed. "All this happened a very long time ago, and I have never discussed it. To explain in words . . . I'm not sure where I would begin."

Jean decided to bypass further polite negotiation. She took a deep breath and delved into her mind. Her openness to Laura was still there, but faint, weakened by distance and inattention. She reached out towards Mariko and opened the older woman's mind with her own. _You can just show me. Just remember, and I'll see it._

The images started at once. She saw a city scattered with broken buildings. Many of them were surrounded by construction scaffolding. The streets were uncrowded, but here and there hand-pulled carts, people on bicycles or on foot, or the occasional vehicle wound through the city. The colors seemed to jar against the cars and bicycles . . . they were old, and her mind insisted that they should all be black-and-white, or sepia-toned. But this wasn't a photograph. Memories came in full color.

_1946, _Mariko's voice informed her. _It was a difficult and dangerous time in Japan. Our government was destroyed, our industry and military crippled, so many hundreds of thousands of people dead . . . everything was uncertain. _

Jean looked around the memory. Mariko was standing at a window of an office, looking down onto the re-emerging city.

_The Yashidas are a crime family. With the power of the empire reduced to almost nothing, the crime syndicates were frantic to grab territory. It was a second war, in the back streets of Tokyo. My father sent me away to our home in the country, to keep me safe. I met Logan there._

The memory jumped backwards again, and Jean could see him. He looked younger . . . not much, but enough. It was the smile that made the difference. He was wearing military fatigues showing the insignia of at least three different countries, probably foraged or traded for. He was watching Mariko (a petite, upright Japanese girl with demure mannerisms but fierce dark eyes) as she stepped down from a train onto the platform of the station.

Then they were walking together along the edge of an unplanted rice field. Then they were sitting on the porch of a low, single-story house, each holding a bowl of rice in one hand and chopsticks in the other, watching the sun set over an overgrown garden. Then they were in the garden, under blazing sunshine, ripping out weeds by the handful and laughing at the mud on their faces and clothes and hands. With every image, Mariko's hard gaze grew softer, and Logan's expression of world-wise cynicism mellowed into contentment and pride.

Jean's own memories fought to surface, competing with Mariko's disjointed narrative. Logan used to look at her that way.

The images jumped back to the city. There were nights in dark alleys and shadowed doorways, the firecracker flash of handgun fire and that salty, sour gunpowder smell. _The war became more complicated_, Mariko told her. _Logan got involved._

She saw Logan emerge from a shadow, breathing hard, wiping blood from the blade of a well-worn folding knife. Mariko was in his arms the next second, her whole body shaking. Logan brushed a strand of hair off of her face and left a smudge of red across her brow.

_My father and both my brothers were killed._

Jean saw an enormous display of flowers arranged around three black-and-white photograph portraits, the elder in in the middle and the younger ones to either side. Mariko wore a black silk kimono, her face hard, her eyes dry, her cheeks almost bloodless. Logan hovered outside the room, excluded from the family mourning, but never out of Mariko's sight.

_I was the heir . . . the only one left to unite and lead the Yashida family. Logan promised to help me. For a little while, I had so much hope._

The memory returned to where it had started: the office overlooking Tokyo. Mariko stood at the window, wearing a neat black business suit with a carefully tailored knee-length pencil skirt. She was hugging herself, though it was summer outside. Another business-suited Japanese man was in the office with her, but she was steadfastly refusing to look at him.

"You cannot do this," he told her.

"I can," she contradicted flatly, watching bicycles pass in the street below, "and I am."

"The family will not stand for it."

"I am head of the family now. I will decide what is best to be done. You know that we cannot continue to do business as we always have."

"Yes," the man admitted. "I do know that."

"We will have to look to the Americans for money and influence for the foreseeable future. To establish a relationship with the hierarchy at Dai Ichi _now_ could keep us strong and well-positioned for years. We'll get this contract, no matter what it takes."

Her companion hesitated. "Is that why? You think that it will strengthen our chances to establish contracts with American firms if you sell yourself to a foreigner like all those thousands of women are already doing all over the streets of Tokyo?"

Mariko finally turned to look at him, her dark eyes blazing. "I am the daughter of Shingen Yashida and you will _never_ speak to me that way again."

The other man bowed apologetically. "I ask your forgiveness."

Mariko's answering bow was no more than a quick downward jerk of the head, acknowledging the apology without implying that he was off the hook.

"When my father was alive, I understood and accepted that I would marry where I was required to for the sake of the family, and after that I would be left in peace. Things are different now. My life I dedicate to the service of our house, and in exchange I claim this one thing for myself. I will marry Logan. You have no power to stop me."

"No," he agreed. "I don't. But I can tell you what will happen. Tagamura and Hiriuki and all the others will be hesitant to follow you, young and female as you are, but they will do it because of your parentage. They will balk at abandoning all their old trades for above-board dealings with the Americans, but they will do it, and in time will come to see that it is the only thing we could have done. But if you ask them to do all that on the order of a woman who is sharing her bed with a nameless, shiftless foreigner, they'll break. Despite what you may think, you are not the only person who could lead the clan. There are others. Too many others, in fact. They will rip us apart with conspiracy and infighting, and before they are through, both you and your foreign lover will be dead."

"Logan is very difficult to kill," Mariko snapped. "He will protect me."

"I pray it may be so. But how many others will die? Your cousins. Their wives and their children. No one will be safe . . . not unless you can hang onto the control you've gained. And I tell you that you cannot do it with a foreigner at your side."

Mariko stood very still, her spine perfectly straight, her face impassive. Finally, in a voice that was flat and cold, she ordered, "Get out."

He bowed again. "I know you would not be so angry if you did not know that what I've said is true. And though it may be of little comfort, I want you to know that I am truly sorry. He seems to love you. If matters were different . . . but they are not."

Mariko looked away, back out the window, and her arms wrapped around her abdomen again as though to ward off the cold. "No," she agreed. "They are not."

The other man withdrew. Mariko remained alone in the office that had been her father's. She paced and circled across the room, sometimes sitting, sometimes holding her head between her hands, one time even letting out a choked scream of frustration and anger. Outside, the sun sank over the city, until the gleaming wood floor was tiger-striped with orange light and black shadows.

Mariko was standing at the window again, her forehead leaning against the glass, when the door opened several hours later. She didn't move.

Logan shut the door softly and approached her from behind, resting his hands on her shoulders and his cheek on her hair. "Hey."

Mariko watched as her reflection in the class closed its eyes, breathing deep as though preparing to dive into freezing water.

"Masashi said you'd been up here all afternoon," He murmured. "Everything okay?"

"I've been thinking," she whispered.

"What about?"

"About what to do."

He pressed a kiss into her hair. "We'll figure it out."

"I think I've figured it out."

"Yeah?"

Mariko turned away from him, slipping out of his reach. Jean could see her lips pressing together as she steeled herself. "You need to go, Logan."

"Go? To the house?"

"No. I want you to be out of Tokyo in the morning."

Logan's posture stiffened; he'd figured out that something was seriously wrong. "Mariko, what's goin' on?"

"I've told you. I've been thinking." Mariko turned around to look at him, and her face was serene as soon as he could see it. Her hands were folded in front of her, the posture polite, docile, but the set of her shoulders and lift in her chin betrayed just how serious she was. "I can see no way to hold my family together if I marry you. So you need to leave. Tonight. Now."

Logan stood silent, looking at her.

"Didn't you hear me?" Mariko demanded.

Logan nodded. "I heard ya. I just didn't believe ya."

"In that case, I will call the staff and have you thrown out."

"No, you won't. I know you. Masashi probably tried to get under your skin, and he freaked you out a little bit. But in a minute you're gonna calm down."

"Logan, I assure you that I am as calm and as lucid as I have ever been in my life. I have been wrestling with facts and inevitabilities. I have inevitably concluded that I cannot be the leader that clan Yashida needs if I am shackled to a foreigner. So you have to go."

"_Shackled to a foreigner_," Logan echoed. "That's them talking. That's not you. I _know_ you, Mariko. You love me, and don't pretend you don't."

"I pretend nothing," Mariko told him. The steadiness of her own voice seemed to be giving her strength. "But you cannot stay. My family will kill you, or make you wish they had. You must leave."

"If I'm leavin', then you're comin' with me." Logan reached to grab her arm, but she jerked away, and he let her go rather than try to hold her close by force.

"No. I stay. I'm needed here."

"The hell you'll stay. _I _need you!"

"Then I am very sorry for you. _Don't,_" she snapped, when he made a move toward her. The command stopped him where he stood. "Perhaps you do need me. But you are special. You will heal. My family will not. Perhaps I love you . . . it doesn't matter. This is more important to me than you can ever hope to be. There is nothing for you to stay for."

For a long moment, they stared at one another, Logan almost quivering with the tension of restraining himself, Mariko as implacable as a stone statue.

"You're makin' a mistake," Logan breathed at last.

Mariko's lips pressed together . . . the first betrayal of emotion she'd allowed herself. "Turn around," she instructed gently, "and walk. If you go quickly, it will not hurt so much."

"I _love_ you," Logan told her, the words accusatory and fierce.

Mariko nodded her acknowledgment without giving anything in return.

Logan stared at her for one more long second, then turned on his heel and stalked out of the room.

Even before the door had slammed into its frame, Mariko's knees buckled under her. She crumpled to the floor, her face crumpling into the twisted ugliness of unbearable pain. She hid behind her hands, rocking herself back and forth, forcing herself not to sob lest he hear her.

_If he'd turned around . . . if he had even hesitated . . . I would have broken. He could have asked me to go with him to the ends of the earth, and I would have gone. I would have thrown away everything. _

Jean had forgotten, for a moment, that the present-day Mariko was watching all this with her. She forced herself to breathe, returning to awareness of her physical body. The darkened office faded away, and she opened her eyes to see the sunlit hotel suite. Sitting across from her was a little old Japanese lady with one silver tear slipping out of each eye, as though she'd broken her own heart only yesterday.

Mariko produced a handkerchief from her pocket and dabbed the tears away, smiling awkwardly to hide her embarrassment. "That was very interesting," she observed. "Your gift makes the memory more clear than it has been for many years."

"I'm sorry," Jean apologized, cringing.

"By no means. I had almost forgotten I was ever that young. It was . . . instructive . . . to be reminded." Face composed, she put the handkerchief away. "So now you know my story. You can do with it what you will."

"Do with it?" Jean echoed. "What would I possibly do with it? Sell the movie rights?"

Mariko smiled.

Jean did, too, but she set aside her flippancy. "Can I ask you something?"

"You may ask, though I don't promise to answer."

"Do you think you made the right choice?"

Mariko allowed herself a sigh. "What is right? Every choice has consequences, both good and bad. We choose a course and see it through. There have been many good consequences of that choice. But even knowing all of those . . . I am glad it was a choice I only had to make once."

* * *

"_Salut, Minou._ You doin' somethin'?"

Kitty set her dinner dish in one of the bus tubs and turned to look at Gambit. He was in full 'kitchen' mode, with his uniform sleeves rolled up and a plain white apron tied around his waist. He was in the middle of reducing a huge pile of carrots into neat coins. It was a comforting sight, familiar and homey and reminiscent of all those afternoons they'd spent together on shared kitchen duty.

"Not much," she admitted.

"Scrub up. Could use a hand here."

Kitty went to the handwashing sink and soaped up the nail brush sitting next to the taps.

The wall above the sink was still covered with patterns of dancing blue light. As she scrubbed her hands clean, the light changed to red again. Involuntarily, Kitty winced.

Gambit heard her hiss of indrawn breath. "Yeah. Been freakin' me out too."

"How long are things like this supposed to go on?" Kitty asked, watching the red lines squirm and writhe up the wall.

"Y'askin' me? I'm de youngest in my family. I got no idea." He pulled another gleaming chef's knife off of the magnetic strip on the wall and a second cutting board from the stack under the countertop. "Come chop carrots. Take y'mind off it a while."

Kitty rinsed and dried her hands and applied herself to the carrots.

"It's been almost two days," she murmured. "Karen's got to be exhausted."

"Gettin' faster all the time. Cain't be too much longer, I guess."

The light subsided into blue again. Kitty felt her own body relax in response. She set the blade of her knife into the carrot she was working on and pressed down, then set the heel of her hand on the knife's back and pushed down from her shoulder. "This knife's dull," she complained.

Gambit chuckled. "Where's Magneto when y'need him?"

Kitty rearranged the knife so she was using the sharper section closer to the point.

The door behind her, the one leading out into the corridor, swung open. She ignored it until a soft, deep, rolling voice announced, "_Tovarich,_ this is the last box of them. Either we will need Jamie to make some copies of it or we need a supply run soon."

_Piotr_. She froze, and felt the tiny shaved hairs at the back of her neck stand up under her makeshift hijab.

"_Ah bon,_" Gambit observed. "Next best t'ing. Drop dat on de counter by de sink an' come sharpen _la petite's_ knife for her." He put his own knife aside and went to take care of the box of carrots that Peter had brought up from dry storage.

She didn't look, but she felt him come up behind her, large and warm. "Your knife is dull?" he asked. His voice was astonishingly gentle. Kitty felt herself blushing, and ducked her head a little to hide behind the drape of her veil.

"Let me see."

She handed over the knife. Piotr tested the edge against his thumb. "Very dull," he agreed. "You could have hurt yourself." He flexed his right hand, and armored plates sprang into existence around his fingers. He pinched his thumb and index finger together and slid the blade between them. _Schwing. Schwing._

The lights went red again. Kitty felt the muscles at the back of her neck tense up a little in response.

Piotr reverted his hand back to flesh and tested the edge again. "A little better, at least. Please be careful, though."

"Yeah, that would be just what we need, huh? Me cutting off my finger while Karen's in labor. We can all just have one big sick bay party."

Piotr smiled. "They've been talking of you down there, you know."

"About me?"

"You might be needed to get the baby out if this goes on much longer. I've been talking to Betsy . . . she and the other more skilled telepaths have been taking turns listening to the child."

"Is it okay?"

"So far, yes. But it is tired, and so is Karen."

Kitty felt tired, too. Not physically . . . her energy levels were almost back up to normal by now . . . but emotionally. "I don't know if I could stand it if anything went wrong. I don't even really know Karen, but it's like her baby is _our_ baby, you know?" When Peter's face registered the beginnings of shocked confusion, she hastened to clarify, "Not like _ours_, that's not what I meant . . . everybody's. All us mutants."

Gambit, scrubbing carrots in the three-compartment sink, turned off the water so he could join the conversation. "It's a bad start t'anybody's dream, Magneto's or de Professor's, havin' a lil' baby die here. Bad omen."

"It would be a bad thing, omen or no," Piotr told him.

Kitty bit her lip, wondering if she should say what she was thinking, then let it come spilling out all at once. "If the baby dies . . . is it gonna be our fault? We started this—"

"Creed started it," Gambit told her. "If anyt'in' happens, I'll be takin' it outta his hide."

"Nothing will happen," Piotr insisted. "Karen is a mutant. She is strong. And when her strength gives out, we have ours to give."

The light shifted back to blue.

Piotr put a hand on Kitty's shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. "Stay calm. Chop some carrots. If you are needed, you will need to be focused."

"Needed . . . to, like, reach inside her and take out the baby? I don't know if I could do that."

"You can."

He removed his hand and went across the room to the dish sink. There weren't too many pans there, but he picked up the sprayer and started working on one anyway.

Kitty went back to chopping carrots.

All three X-Men worked in silence, their backs to one another, as the light danced around the walls. Blue, blue, blue, then long stretches of blazing red that made Kitty's whole back ache. Then blue again. Then red.

Then, so suddenly that Kitty dropped her knife, the light fractured. Rainbows shivered and sparkled on every wall. The steel reflected them back, bathing the whole kitchen in a wild storm of colors.

Kitty laughed aloud. "It's okay!"

Gambit gave a great whoop of laughter, picked Kitty up from behind, and swung her around. As soon as her feet were back on the floor, Kitty jumped fearlessly at Piotr and hugged him. She could feel him laughing; it rumbled in his chest. From the dining hall and outside in the corridor, there were more whoops, more shouts, more laughter, a smattering of applause. Everyone on the station knew what the rainbows meant.

"Residents of Avalon," said Professor Xavier's voice in everyone's head, "I have the great pleasure to introduce Karen's son Michael." An image flashed into Kitty's mind of a wrinkled, red, slime-covered creature, umbilical cord still attached to its belly, squirming in its mother's arms and squalling with fine, healthy lungs.

The first mutant born on Avalon . . . born into a safe, isolated community of his own kind. It was kind of amazing. Kind of wonderful.

_Wouldn't it be great if it were always like this? If it could just be us? No humans, no fighting . . . just us by ourselves, living and growing and being safe and happy. Isn't there an island someplace where we could just be our own little country and let America be as mutant-free as it wants?_

She saw it in a flash of imagination. A whole little country of just _them . . . _ where mutants of all shapes and colors walked openly on the streets, and art and music and dance all showed off people's amazing powers, and things were built with telekenesis and powered by energy manipulation, and mutantball was a national pastime. It was full of everything that made the Institute wonderful, but big enough for all the mutants in the whole world. How awesome would it be to be little Michael, and grow up in a place like that?

No wonder Magneto fought so hard. That was a dream worth fighting for.

* * *

Kurt woke up, tangled in yet another set of hotel bed sheets. He was getting a little bit sick of hotels.

Before he even opened his eyes, he heard Professor Xavier's voice in his head. _Good morning, Kurt_.

Kurt grinned. _Good morning, Professor. How's life in space?_

_As pleasant as can be expected. There was a birth here yesterday, and that brightened the mood considerably. How are you and Rogue holding up?_

Kurt sat up and looked over at the other bed. Rogue sat in the middle of it, cross-legged, spine perfectly straight, eyes closed, breathing deeply. Meditating again.

He took a deep breath and lied. _Ve're fine, Professor._

_I'd like you two to come back up to Avalon at the pickup tonight. _

_Sure. Is somesing wrong?_

_Nothing in particular. But with the trial starting so soon, I'd like the team together as much as we can manage. I'd feel safer. _

Kurt hesitated, looking over Rogue again. _Have you still not heard from Jean and Logan?_

_I haven't. Scott says he's been speaking to Jean regularly, but it worries me that I can't contact them. Will you come up? We won't be able to organize another mass pickup for a few days, in any case._

_Ve'll try, Professor. _

As soon as he felt that he was alone in his own head, he asked aloud, "Rogue?"

No response. She was really in her own little world.

Kurt picked up the remote from the side table and turned on the television. The morning news had just started, and after a couple of minutes of local stories ('local' being 'Dallas,' though it was getting hard to keep track), the anchors turned to Scott.

"Tensions are rising as New York braces for the landmark trial of Scott Summers, leader of the unregistered mutant group 'The X-Men.' Both pro- and anti-Summers protests have increased in size and intensity all over the country, and at least six people have been arrested. New York Governor Louisa Montenegro has promised to deploy the National Guard, if necessary, to ensure that the trial proceeds peacefully."

"Rogue, are you hearing all zis?"

Rogue finally opened her eyes. Her whole body gave a little shudder as she 'woke up,' or 'snapped out of it,' or whatever she did when she stopped meditating. "Hear what?"

"Zey're calling out ze National Guard in New York."

Rogue scowled.

"And ze professor just called. He vants us to come home tonight."

"Home?"

"I mean to Avalon."

Rogue turned away from him, ostensibly to grab her gloves from the floor beside her bed, but Kurt knew it was so that he couldn't see her expression. "Gambit still up there?"

"I guess so. I didn't ask."

"Ah ain't goin', then."

"Vhy not?"

She focused more than necessary on pulling her glove on and snugging each finger into place. "Because Ah ain't ready tuh tackle him yet. Ah need a lot more practice."

"You don't _have _to tackle him! You could just talk to him!"

"Nuh-uh. He knows when Ah'm lyin'. And if he figures out what Ah'm plannin' tuh do, he'll never let me get close enough." She glanced up at him. "Don't you gimme that look."

"But Rogue—"

"No!"

"He's your _boyfriend!_"

"And Risty was mah best friend, and Magneto was the Professor's best friend, and Graydon Creed is your freakin' half-brother! It ain't gonna matter. All that's gonna matter is who can take who down, and Ah ain't ready tuh take him down yet. Ain't go the control tuh do it without hurtin' him."

She lifted herself off the bed and drifted her feet into her shoes. "Y'all go on. Ah'll stay down here. Head for New York, so Ah kin be ready for whatever happens."

"But . . ."

"One more word outta you, Kurt Wagner, and ah swear tuh high heaven Ah will zap you, too."

Kurt let his mouth fall closed.

* * *

_Salut, Minou: _Hello, Kitten.

_Dai Ichi_: Eisenhower's military headquarters in Tokyo; effectively the center of governance in Japan after World War II.


	34. Chapter 34

Chapter 34

* * *

Jean woke up again.

She hadn't had a night of unbroken sleep in a week. If it wasn't Laura screaming herself out of a nightmare, it was Jean's own restless mind.

Mariko. Silver Fox. Logan. Laura. Sabertooth. Scott. They all went around and around in her head, fighting for dominance. Scott in a jail cell. Sabertooth smiling at her in that predatory, almost sexual way. Heartbreak in Professor Xavier's eyes. Laura's wide-eyed terror of herself. Logan's eternal, isolating scowl.

Fire danced around all of them.

_Who are you, Jean Grey? Jean Elizabeth Grey, mutant and X-Man, who fights to help others . . . who are YOU? What do YOU want?_

She stared at the ceiling for a long time, and thought, and thought, and thought.

The thoughts were new, frightening things . . . questions she'd never dared to ask herself, or ever imagined she didn't already know. But Mariko and Silver Fox, Logan and Scott, Sabertooth and Laura kept circling in her head, and they would not let her move on without an answer.

Three women—silver, black, and red. Three decisions—death, life, and . . . what?

She woke up again without realizing she'd fallen asleep. Her dream had been warm and sweet and exciting, and had tasted of wood smoke and pine.

_Could I really do that? No, of course I couldn't. But if I don't . . . _

_Could I?_

_I could. If I wanted to._

_If _I_ . . . I, Jean Grey . . . wanted to._

She slid out of bed, telekinetically silencing the sheets so she didn't disturb Laura, and pulled on her training uniform. Then she slipped out of the room and tapped on Logan's door.

No answer.

She took a deep breath, pressed the spots inside her skull that kept herself from overstraining, and swept her awareness through the entire hotel. He was on the roof. He was probably thinking. He probably didn't want to be disturbed.

She got on the elevator and rode it to the top floor.

_I can't believe I'm doing this._

Logan was standing on the edge of the roof, leaning on the barrier and looking out over the city. It was freezing cold, and the sky was absolutely clear, though the stars were dim, overwhelmed by the millions of lights of Seoul.

Jean's breath was misting in front of her face.

_Am I actually doing this?_

She took two steps forward, stopped, turned around, stopped, turned around again, and then held perfectly still lest she continue to spin on the spot like a complete idiot.

_If he's up here smoking, I won't do it,_ she decided. _I don't think I could if he's been smoking. Yuck._

She walked out of the shadow of the helicopter pad and joined Logan at the wall.

He turned to her as she approached, responding either to her footsteps or to her scent on the almost-nonexistent breeze. "What're you doing up?" he asked, curious and concerned, but not angry.

"I have to ask you a question."

Her heart was going way too fast. She didn't think she'd ever been so scared in her entire life. She wanted to jump off the side of the building, float to the ground, and hide under a bridge somewhere until she died of embarrassment.

Logan raised an eyebrow and waited for her to spit it out.

She took one deep breath and did so. "If it were important . . . really, actually important . . . could you stop smoking?"

Logan looked her over. "You woke up and came out here at three a.m. in the freezing cold to ask me to quit smoking?"

"Just answer the question."

"If it were 'really, actually important,' and not just another one of your anti-tobacco campaigns, sure. Now my turn. Why the hell was it so important that you find this out right now?"

For an answer, Jean took one decisive step forward and kissed him.

Logan froze. She could feel every muscle in his body go completely rigid. He made no move to push her away, but neither did he give any hint of response. Jean caught his face between her hands and kept kissing him anyway. His mouth tasted like wood smoke and pine and cold, clear air, and something dark and sweet, like molasses, and the faint tang of metal.

When she finally ran out of air and broke the one-sided kiss, she let her forehead rest against his but kept her eyes shut, too terrified and too embarrassed to look at him. She did notice that he was breathing as hard as she was, and he still hadn't stepped back or done anything to ward her off.

After a long moment of silence in the icy air, Jean begged, "Please say something."

"Cyclops," said Logan.

Jean's eyes flew open of their own accord, and she recoiled a little, her insides twisting uncomfortably. "Something besides that."

"What'd you want me to say, Red?" His voice was rough, but his tone was gentle, like he truly wanted to know what he ought to say to make this better.

"Say what you said that day in the garage. Tell me you still love me."

"What's the point, darlin'? It doesn't matter."

"Why doesn't it matter?"

"Because you love Scott." He took hold of her wrists and removed her hands from his face, but didn't let go of them. "I know this might have slipped your mind with all the action we've been dealin' with, but you love him. And he worships the ground you walk on. And he's facing judge and jury tomorrow to save us all."

"Yeah, I know all that. I love Scott. He's my best friend. But Logan, I love _you_, too. And I'm tired of trying to convince myself that I don't."

"You don't get to love me 'too.' It doesn't work like that."

"You think I don't know that?" Jean demanded, yanking her wrists impatiently out of his grip. "I know perfectly well that I'm way past the point where I can get out of this mess without breaking someone's heart. I have to make a choice."

"You made that choice a long time ago."

"No. I got shoved across the kitchen into that choice, if you'll remember. You didn't give me any time to _think_. You just shoved me at Scott and I went because I was too confused to think of anything else to do. But I'm not married, Logan. I'll still free to choose. And for once in all my life I want to choose based on what _I_ want, not what I _should_ want."

"And what is it that you want?" There was a flare of temper rising in his voice, now, and Jean was secretly glad. She was better at handling Logan angry than facing that grim, pained look of his. "What in the world are you angling for that you think you can find up on this roof but you can't get from _him_? For cryin' out loud, Red, Scott loves you!"

Jean turned away from him, needing to storm around a little bit on the big empty rooftop. "Yes! Fine! Scott loves me! And I love him! And we've sort of assumed we'd get married one day, and remodel the old boat house and move into it, and have two or three kids, and keep the Institute going when the Professor retires . . ."

"I'm still missin' what part of this you're findin' so unattractive."

"None of it is unattractive! It's exactly what I want . . . the perfect life for the two perfect mutant poster children. But, Logan, I _know_ that life. I know it like I've already lived it. And in the middle of that life I'm going to lie awake at night and wonder where you are, and if you're thinking about me, and where we'd be if I'd gone up to the roof that night . . . tonight . . . and told you how I felt. Told you that I wanted you."

Logan looked her over, the anger fading and the sadness . . . or whatever that inscrutable look was . . . coming back.

"Jean, honey," he said at last, "You can't do this. You know you can't."

"Why can't I? Where is that written? Who decided that for me?"

"Because you're smarter than this. You're not gonna give up your whole life . . . your responsibilities . . . because you've suddenly decided you're in love with me, or because everyone expects you to end up with Scott and you've decided you want to be contrary about it. You've got no idea what that would mean."

"Don't I?" Jean stepped back from him, standing up dead straight and feeling her eyes blaze. "What do you see when you look at me, Logan? Tell me what you see."

"I see Jean," he told her, and she felt her heart stutter in her chest. How could she ever have missed the fact that he loved her, when he said her name like that?

"_No_, you don't. You see Silver Fox. And Mariko. You think Fox died because she chose to run away with you, and Mariko lived because she told you no. You think my only two choices are the choices they made, and the consequences they faced. Well you know what, smart guy? It's not that simple." She stepped closer to him again, and lay her hand on his cheek. He sucked in his breath like her touch burned him. "I'm a mutant, Logan. I'm Jean Gray of the X-Men. I am powerful, and getting more powerful all the time. I'm not afraid of Sabertooth, or of anyone else. I'm free to love you if I want to. And I _want to_."

Logan grabbed her hand, but didn't pull it away. Instead, she felt the rough callus of his thumb brush along the backs of her fingers. Under her palm, his jaw worked with the fierce effort of self-control.

"When the trial is over," she murmured, "I'll tell Scott."

"It'll break his heart."

"He'll heal. He's strong. He doesn't need me to lie to him."

"I don't, either."

"I know. This isn't about who needs me the most, or who I feel the most responsibility for, or who _deserves _me. This is about what _I _want, and what _I _need. Scott will understand. Maybe not right away, but someday. And in the meantime, we can go away, you and me and Laura. Anywhere."

Logan said nothing. He just stared at her, as though he could devour her with his eyes, his thumb stroking ceaselessly across her knuckles. Jean couldn't breathe. The temptation to delve into his mind, to force him to tell her what he was thinking, was nearly unbearable.

The air was so cold. It bit at the exposed skin of her face and her free hand. And still Logan said nothing.

Jean felt a dense lump of dread form in the pit of her stomach. "Is this 'no'?" she asked, her voice barely anything more than a whisper. "This is 'no,' isn't it? I'm too late. You don't want me anymore."

"_No_," Logan almost snapped. His hand wrapped around hers and squeezed tight. "But Jeannie, darlin', I know from hard experience that it's a very bad idea to make big decisions in the middle of the night. I don't want you to wake up tomorrow and realize by daylight that this was a mistake. It'd hurt you, and it'd kill me. So go to bed. If, in the morning, you wanna take this all back, then it never happened."

"And if I don't want to take any of it back?"

He pressed her hand to his mouth . . . not kissing it, but feeling the warmth there, savoring the scent of her for one illicit second. "Then we'll talk."

Jean considered. It was as fair a compromise as she could have expected. And if he was right . . . if she woke up tomorrow feeling like a complete fool for throwing her heart at his feet like this . . .

The thought very nearly made her sick.

"Okay," she murmured. "Good night, then."

"G'night, Red."

She slipped her hand out of his grasp and turned away, back to the doors that led to the interior of the building. When she reached them, she turned around to look. Logan hadn't taken his eyes off her.

_In the morning._ Jean pulled the door open and headed back to bed.

* * *

Gambit was late getting down to the cargo bay; people were already spilling out into the corridor, in teams of two or three as established Avalon residents escorted the newest batch of refugees through the maze towards the living quarters.

The refugees didn't interest him at all. Nothing had interested him since word had come through the station's gossip chain that Professor Xavier was calling everybody home. _Everybody._

Kurt was helping a young teenager pick up some papers that had spilled out of a dropped backpack. His fur made him easy to spot in a crowd. Gambit scanned the area around him, then the whole room. No Rogue.

He waited for the spilled backpack to be dealt with, then grabbed his friend by the shoulder. "Where's Rogue?"

Kurt shook his head. "She didn't come."

"_Qu'est-ce que tu veut dire, _'she didn' come'? Prof said he was callin' you guys in!"

"He did! She said she vanted to stay planetside."

"_Why_?"

Kurt pressed his lips together, as though keeping the answer to Gambit's question from flying out of his mouth. "She's really scared," he said at last. "I tried to talk her into coming back vith me, but . . . she threatened to zap me one if I didn't shut up about it. So I shut up."

Rogue? Rogue had threatened _Kurt? _Her _brother_? Rogue, who would happily break the head of anyone who dared to raise a hand to the fuzzy blue elf? That wasn't Rogue scared. That was Rogue panicking.

Rogue wasn't refusing to come back to Avalon because she was scared of Magneto. She'd spit in Magneto's eye if given half a chance. She'd stayed on the ground because she was scared of _him_. Scared enough to threaten Kurt. Scared enough to disobey Professor Xavier.

He stuffed a hand into his pocket and fished out the phone number that Kurt had given him. To hell with his pride—he had to call her. He was already turning to head for the door when Kurt grabbed him by the shoulder. "It's no use, man." In his other hand, he held up the cell phone.

Infuriated, Gambit yanked it out of his grip and sent charge roaring through it, ready to blow the thing into a million pieces.

"Hey! You blow zat up and zen _she_ can't call _us_!"

Gambit let out his breath in one frustrated, furious hiss, and let the charge dissipate harmlessly out of the phone. "If you was pullin dat 'voice 'a reason' thing wid her, it's no wonder she was 'bout ready t'kill ya."

Kurt's mouth twitched in a faint shadow of his once-customary grin. "You can hang onto zat, if you vant."

Gambit tossed it back to him. "_Non. _Prob'ly hang up if I answered. She didn't tell you where she'd be goin', by any chance?"

Kurt shook his head. "She just took ze credit card, said she'd be fine, and took off. I guess she'll head for New York, but she's good at flying under ze radar by now. Maybe Professor Xavier could find her, but even zen she'd be hard to catch. Cerebro never vas too good at tracking her if she vasn't flying."

Gambit stuffed his hands in his pockets, scowling. "So what's left t'do, den? Wait?"

"I guess so."

* * *

The conference room was packed. Up until now, 'staff meetings' had been minimalist: Eric and Charles, Storm and Hank. This meeting was everyone who was anyone: all the X-Men, all the Brotherhood, and several unaffiliated mutants like Forge, Carol, Betsy, and Liz the nurse whose input had proven valuable.

"I'd like to send a team down to the trial," Professor Xavier announced. "Not to interfere, but to be on hand in case of trouble. Obviously secrecy is crucial, as most of us still have warrants out for our arrest. Therefore I'd like to ask Kurt and Betsy to take the lead on this."

Kurt and Betsy shared a look.

"I'll reprogram my holowatch," Kurt offered. "Vhat about your hair?"

"I can manage my hair," Betsy assured him.

"In the interests of fair play, I'm deploying a team as well," Magneto announced. "It will consist of myself, Quicksilver, and Sabertooth. Three of your people, counting Mr. Summers, and three of mine."

Gambit, as ever, was next to the door. He was shuffling and cutting a handful of about ten playing cards . . . all he had left after the fight. He lined up the sides in his head. Xavier had chosen stealth: a telepath and a teleporter, to spy and watch and evacuate in a hurry if necessary. Magneto was bringing out the big guns. He was rallying for war.

Gambit had also noticed that neither team included him, and wasn't inclined to complain. He didn't want to be in that courtroom.

Where he wanted to be was wherever Rogue was, so he could steal her away to a tropical island somewhere and just stay, isolated and uninvolved, until everything was over. It would be a wonderful plan if he could find Rogue, which he probably couldn't, and convince her to abandon her team, which was almost certainly impossible.

So what, then, was he going to do?

"Agreed," said Professor Xavier, bringing Gambit's attention back to the meeting.

Magneto turned to Storm. "I'm afraid that the time has come to ask you for the return of my helmet."

The helmet was on the conference table in front of Storm. It hadn't left her side since Magneto had surrendered it in a show of good faith . . . could it only have been two weeks ago?

Ororo picked it up and offered it. "It was good to be your ally, Eric Lenscherr. Thank you for everything that you have done for us."

"It was my very great pleasure." The helmet drifted out of Storm's hands and returned to its master. When it reached him, it folded itself, as though made of paper, into a neat rectangle about the size of a man's wallet. Magneto slipped it into the back pocket of his slacks. "And I'd like to make it clear that, no matter the outcome, I will bring no harm to anyone on board this station. Anyone who wishes to stay here is welcome to do so and will be under my protection. Anyone who wishes to go will be provided with transportation. If the jury brings a guilty verdict, then this truce ends at dawn the following day."

Piotr, leaning against the wall to Gambit's left, gave a dry snort of amusement. In a low voice, he muttered, "It is gratifying to know he will not crush us all into a pocket-sized lump of metal, at least."

"_Ouais. Je m'inquietais._ Cain't put anythin' past a man who'll forget t'pay his lackeys for two years."

"Well," said Hank, "It appears that everything is settled but the outcome." He stood up from the table. "Now, soldiers, march away. And how thou pleasest, God, dispose the day."

* * *

_Qu'est-ce que tu veut dire?: _What do you mean?

_Je m'inquietais_: I was worried.

Hank's comment is from Shakespeare's _Henry V_. Which I'm seeing tonight. Not to brag or anything.


	35. Chapter 35

Chapter 35 

* * *

Scott woke up and stared for a moment at the inside of his eyelids.

_It's today, isn't it?_

Another voice echoed in his head. _Yes, it's today._

He grinned. _Hi, you._

_Hi, you._

_Gonna wish me luck?_

_You don't need it. Everything's going to be fine. Just stay calm. I'll be watching you._

_Glad somebody is. _He scrubbed at his eyes through the blindfold. _I'm so sick of this thing on my face, Jean. I swear, as soon as I get my visor back, I'm bolting it onto my head. I might also kiss it. I hope you won't be jealous._

She laughed. _Do I seem jealous?_ He felt an illusory kiss press against his mouth.

_Wow._

_Thank you._

_I didn't know you could do that._

_I'm full of surprises. _She kissed him again, brief and sweet. _You're going to be great. And I'll be there to help you if anything goes wrong, okay?_

_Counting on it. _

She faded away, and Scott got out of bed. He had no idea what time it was, so now was as good a time as any to shower and shave. He'd been getting lax about shaving . . . not much point, he figured, when he was locked in a box by himself . . . but today was a big day.

Royal had provided him with a suit. Not his own, since his one suit was probably in an FBI evidence locker, but a nice one that fit well and he hoped he'd be able to keep. It was annoying to not know what color tie he had on. Well, he'd trusted Royal this far; he'd just have to take a leap of faith and trust his taste in ties, too.

As it turned out, he'd woken up early. The next several hours were excruciatingly boring. He'd been given some books in Braille, and over the course of his confinement had gotten his reading speed almost back up to where it had been when he was a kid, but this morning the books couldn't hold his attention. He spent the time pacing his cell, lying down, getting back up, doing a few restless push-ups with his feet on his bunk just to burn off some energy, and going over and over the endless instructions Royal had drilled into his head. _Sit up straight. Turn towards whoever's speaking. Don't say 'lie.' Address the judge as 'Your Honor' but don't give any honorific to the DA. Don't fidget. Don't exaggerate. Don't shout._

_Finally_, something metal tapped against his door. "Let's go, Summers."

Scott, familiar with the routine by now, stuck his hands through the slot so they could be cuffed. He was escorted through the prison . . . not to the visitation rooms, but along other hallways, past other checkpoints. Out to the front door, where Royal was waiting for him.

"How're you feeling, Scott?" his lawyer asked.

"Nervous," Scott admitted. His guard unlocked the cuffs, and he rubbed absently at his wrists.

"You're gonna be great. Here . . . I brought you a present." Royal took him by the shoulder and turned him around, then untied the ragged and sweat-stained scrap of his blindfold. A cool band of fabric took its place.

"Cream silk," Royal told him as he tied the new blindfold snugly behind Scott's head. "Much more professional. Though I'll admit that there isn't really a precedent for the latest fashion in blindfolds."

"Just so long as you didn't get it monogrammed." Scott felt his face, just to be sure he didn't have an embroidered _SS_ sitting on his nose. "And Royal?"

"Yeah?"

"What color is my tie?"

Royal laughed. "Blue with thin red diagonal stripes. All red would be too aggressive, but all blue makes you look like a push-over." He turned Scott around again, straightened the blue-with-red-stripe tie, and brushed off the shoulders of his jacket. "All set. Let's go."

Scott buttoned his jacket and followed Royal's guidance out of the jail that had been his home for the last two weeks. It was cold outside, but not as much as he'd thought it would be. Hardly any sunlight shone through his eyelids.

"We're getting to the courtroom pretty early," Royal told him. "Fewer reporters hanging around that way. Watch your head."

Scott found the roof of the squad car and ducked inside it, sliding to the far edge of the vinyl bench seat.

"I said 'fewer,' Royal clarified as soon as he slammed the door closed behind himself. "Not 'none.' When we get out of this car, you're gonna get hit with a lot of yelling and a lot of camera flashes. Whatever you do, don't try to cover your face. Makes you look guilty. Just walk straight ahead. Don't react, and don't say anything. The approach is about thirty feet, and then there are seven stairs. Once we're in the front door, you're in the clear. Got it?"

"Don't hide my face, don't say anything, thirty foot approach and seven steps," Scott repeated.

"Smart boy."

"Are they gonna film the trial?"

"I requested it, but the DA said no. They know we're banking on public sympathy, so the less they let your face get on television, the happier they are."

"Is Warren gonna be there?"

"Yep. Probably Creed and his lackeys, too."

"Anyone else?"

"If any of your people are showing up, they didn't tell us. I'll keep my eyes peeled for suspicious teenagers wearing Groucho Marx glasses."

"Don't bother. If they don't want to be seen, you won't see them." 

* * *

Jean woke up.

For a long moment, she stared at the ceiling.

Something had happened . . . something that filled her with equal parts excitement and dread. Was it a dream she'd just woken up from, or something that had happened last night?

She lay perfectly still and let the memory come rushing back to her. The roof. The cold air. The sparkling city. Logan. His worry that anything she felt for him would fade with the dawn.

She took stock of herself, staring at the bare white ceiling of her hotel room. Did she love him by daylight?

Yes.

Enough to end her relationship with Scott, leave the team that was her second family, and disappear into an uncertain future?

Yes.

She lunged out of bed so fast that she would have startled Laura, had Laura still been there. The other bed was empty. A glance at the clock told Jean that she'd slept much later than usual, and that both Laura and Logan were probably upstairs in Mariko's suite, having breakfast, as had become their custom in the week they'd been in Seoul.

Though she wanted to rush straight upstairs, sense . . . and vanity . . . insisted that she shower first, dry her hair, and make sure that it fell just so around her face. She had no makeup, but found to her surprise that she almost didn't need it: her cheeks were pink with excitement, and her eyes were bright enough to draw attention to themselves without the assistance of cosmetics.

When she was satisfied with her own appearance, she took the elevator up to Mariko's room, knocked, and was admitted by Mariko herself.

"Good morning, Miss Gray," Mariko greeted her. "I hope that you've slept well." It was hard to tell on that serene, professional face, but Jean could have sworn that there was a shadow of a smile there. Did she know?

"Wonderfully, thank you." Jean entered, slipped off her shoes to leave in the doorway, and went to the table where both Logan and Laura were eating a decidedly non-western breakfast of white rice and a sort of red soup that looked painfully spicy.

Logan turned in his chair to look up at her.

Jean's heart all but stopped. She'd known Logan for over ten years, and had seen him almost daily for much of that time, but somehow she'd never noticed it before. There was gold in the brown of Logan's eyes.

If she hadn't already made her choice, that sight would have made it for her.

She dipped into his mind almost without meaning to; it was wide open this morning, in sharp contrast to last night. He'd hardly slept, though not for lack of trying, and despite every good intention to pretend the conversation hadn't happened, hope had seeped in. It was that forbidden hope that was brightening his eyes now, that gave him that open, human expression, and made him look so much younger. He didn't want to influence her choice with what _he_ wanted, but Jean saw pictures in his thoughts . . . imaginings of what they could become if she chose to love him.

Jean smiled. Beamed, really. She couldn't help herself. She loved him by daylight, and a whole new future was opening up in front of her.

He smiled, too . . . a subtle, private smile, more in his eyes than in his mouth.

Despite Logan's promise that they would 'talk,' nothing really needed to be said. They just shared a look across the breakfast table, and everything was settled between them.

"Sit down and eat," he told her at last.

Jean sat down and reached for one of the pastries that was set out for her . . . she alone had trouble stomaching Korean food before noon, and opted for 'western'-style breakfast fare.

"Your eyes are different," Laura observed, sounding suspicious.

"I'm happy," Jean explained. Though she had no inclination to share what had just happened with anyone but Logan, she reluctantly remembered that she'd promised Laura total openness. She opened her mind and let Laura see her memories of the last few hours.

Laura's head tipped sideways as she processed the new information. "I don't understand."

"You'll get there, Kiddo," Logan told her. "Quit worryin' and eat. You're still so skinny you make me hungry just lookin' at you."

Mariko resumed her seat, and breakfast continued peacefully. 

* * *

Kurt was rather proud of himself. He wasn't a programming genius, but he'd managed to put together a new holo-self that was actually kind of cool. He'd made himself look about fifteen years older, changed the color of his eyes, tweaked his features, and added two inches of height. He'd also given himself an overcoat and a fedora, because they just seemed appropriate.

"A fedora?" Amanda asked. "Seriously?"

"I sought it looked dashing," Kurt said defensively.

"You look like Humphrey Bogart."

"Cool!"

"No . . . _really_ like Humphrey Bogart. Like, people are going to be wondering what Humphrey Bogart is doing at Scott's trial if he's supposed to be dead."

Kurt sulked. He hadn't _exactly_ been going for Humphrey Bogart, but . . .

"Give me that." Amanda took the holowatch off his wrist, defaulting his appearance back to its normal blue fuzziness. She altered the program with a few decisive button presses, then handed it back. "There. No hat, and less nose."

"I like my hat."

She grinned and kissed him on the cheek. "You're not even supposed to wear hats in courtrooms. You can be Humphrey Bogart for the victory party." She put the watch back on his wrist and turned it on. "There. Much better."

"Sanks." He leaned in to return the kiss, but Amanda put a hand over his mouth.

"Sorry, Kurt . . . not while you look like you're old enough to be my dad. It's creepy."

"Are we ready to go?" asked Betsy, entering the hangar bay. Her long purple hair was tucked up into a soft knitted hat of almost exactly the same shade. It was easy to mistake any stray wisps for loose bits of yarn.

"Nice hat," Amanda told her.

"Oh, _she _gets to vear a hat," Kurt complained.

"Thanks." Betsy tugged on it, pulling it jauntily to one side. "I made it. Did you know that one of the mutants from the Chicago pickup can spin silk, like a spider? She can do it any color."

"Cool! Like Spiderman?"

"Spiderman isn't a mutant," Kurt corrected, still annoyed at the double standard.

"You're such a snob."

There was a zip, and Pietro was suddenly standing among them, still wobbling a little from his sudden stop. "You guys ready? 'Cuz my dad's heading down and he _hates_ when people keep him waiting."

"You make your dad sound like a lot more of a jerk than he really is," Amanda told him. "He spent like half an hour yesterday helping me sharpen all the knives."

"Ze better to disembowel you vith, my dear," Kurt teased.

"If he does choose to start disemboweling us all, surely he won't use the kitchen knives," Betsy observed. "How unhygienic."

"I promise that any disemboweling will be done with utensils set aside for that purpose," Magneto told them as he and Sabertooth came in after Pietro.

"Oh, good. That is a great comfort."

"We gonna chat all day, or get going?" Sabertooth demanded. "Don't want to miss watchin' my kid set off the end of the world."

Amanda patted Kurt on the shoulder and stepped back. "Good luck!"

Magneto raised a hand, and metal flowed up out of the floor to encapsulate the five of them in a pitch-black sphere.

"I hate these," Sabertooth grumbled.

"I'd never sought I'd say zis," said Kurt, "but I agree vith him." He grabbed hold of the curved interior wall and held on.

The sphere accelerated, throwing Sabertooth and Pietro off their balance—Kurt could hear the thuds and swearing as they hit the back edge. Travelling by sphere was nerve-wracking, but at least it was fast. After only a few minutes, the ride came to an end and the sphere unfolded.

"Central Park?" Betsy asked. "How public."

"Not at this hour of the morning," said Magneto. "And we're only a few blocks from the courthouse."

"No need for a taxi, then?"

"Would you like one?" He made a small gesture with his hand, and at the edge of park several car horns blared in protest to whatever he'd just started to do.

"No, thank you," said Betsy, politely.

"As you will."

They walked the few blocks to the courtroom, three adult men, a woman, and a youth, walking through Manhattan in the early hours of the morning.

There was already an enormous crowd gathered outside. Television news crews recorded their segments over the chatter of protesters and gawkers. Several squad cars were parked up and down the street, and uniformed officers, backed up by National Guardsmen in green camouflage and big khaki boots.

"How are ve supposed to get in zere?" Kurt asked, aghast. "I mean, I could, maybe, but I don't know ze layout inside."

"Don't worry," Betsy assured him. "I've been practicing with Charles."

She gritted her teeth, and lines of strain appeared between her eyebrows. The people in front of them began to shift, each one arbitrarily deciding that he or she needed to move a step or two to the side to see better or to ease the strain of standing. The mutants, single file, slipped through the narrow path that opened before them.

When they were nearly to the line of cops, a black car pulled up to the curb. The door opened, and the crowd surged forward to get a better look.

Scott climbed out of the car, keeping his balance by holding onto the shoulder of a dark-haired guy carrying a briefcase in his free hand. Camera flashes blazed everywhere, and cacophonic shouts of "Mr. Summers! Mr. Summers, over here! Scott!" exploded through the mass of people.

Scott and the man walked up the sidewalk and climbed the steps of the courtroom. Kurt wanted to yell to him, but in all this noise he doubted if he'd be able to hear himself.

As Scott passed them, his head turned, and he smiled. His right cheek twitched in what could have been a wink under the blindfold.

"He knows ve're here!"

"I told him," said Betsy. "Come along. We can wait in the lobby, where it's warm."


	36. Chapter 36

Chapter 36

* * *

The trial started at ten. Judge Webb presiding. All rise.

Kurt and the other mutants had seats in a bench about five rows back on the defense side. A few rows in front of them, and on the other side of the isle, sat Senator Creed. His secretary was next to him, and at either side of them were beefy bodyguards. Directly behind Scott and his lawyer was Warren Worthington. Kurt wanted to say hi, but decided not to. Warren wasn't an X-Man, not officially, but if Magneto knew just how much help Warren had been giving them, he might count him as one of their 'team' and insist on bringing down another of his minions to even the score.

The courtroom was packed. The back had been opened for standing-room-only. The crowd didn't make him uncomfortable—it was hard to develop claustrophobia as a teleporter—but it did make him worried.

"If ze fighting starts here," he muttered to Betsy, "A lot of people are going to get killed very fast."

_It won't start in here_, Betsy assured him. _Magneto has given his word. _

Kurt lowered his voice. "And how much do we trust zat, really?"

_As much as we have to._

Kurt didn't feel much better.

Opening statements happened. Scott's lawyer, Jeremy Royal, liked to stride around while he talked, with his hands stuffed casually in his pants pockets when he wasn't using them to gesture. The DA was named Mary Ann Braddock (_No relation_, Betsy assured him) and was a petite, middle-aged woman, much shorter than Royal but also significantly older. She was wearing high-heeled shoes that clicked as she walked in slow and steady circles around the court, her voice calm and professional. Before she'd even finished her first sentence, Kurt could tell that she was good. She described the attack on the house as "a legal arrest in a very charged political situation that rapidly escalated out of control," and Scott ('the defendant') as "a troubled young man whose past experiences have made him unreasonably distrustful of government authority." She didn't want to try to make Scott look evil—that would be close to impossible—but paranoid. Considering how paranoid Kurt was feeling right now, it wouldn't be that hard of a sell.

The prosecution called its first witness: a sergeant in dress blues who walked with a jerking, unsteady limp and leaned on a cane, though he couldn't have been older than thirty-five. He was sworn in by the bailiff, just like in the movies, and took the witness stand.

"Please state your name and occupation for the record," requested DA Braddock.

"Staff Sergeant George Carrow, U.S. Marines," said the soldier. His accent proclaimed him to be from Brooklyn.

"Sergeant Carrow, please tell us, in your own words, what you witnessed the morning of the third of this month."

Carrow, who had been perfectly confident reciting his name and rank, shifted awkwardly in his chair. "Well, ma'am, my squad was assigned to be part of an action at the Xavier Institute outside Bayville, New York."

"Could you explain the objective of this action?"

"The objective was the arrest of sixteen mutants who had refused to register in accordance with the Mutant Registration Act."

"And why were the Marines involved?"

"Show of strength, ma'am. The hope was that the mutants would submit quietly to arrest, but in case they didn't, we were as prepared as we could be. Never know what you're going to be facing when you go up against mutants. Most of us were packing riot gear—tranq darts, rubber bullets, tasers, tear gas—but some squads were packing live ammo, just to be safe."

"Please continue."

"Well, we took positions around the house, then I got on the megaphone and announced the arrest."

"Do you remember your exact words?"

"Yes, ma'am. I said 'Attention all unregistered mutants: you are under arrest. Come outside immediately or we will send troops in after you'."

Kurt scowled, and he could feel his tail whip against the bottom of the pew. "He's _lying_," he hissed to Betsy. "Zat never happened!"

_Hush. I know._

"What happened next?"

"Nothing, for a couple of minutes. I made the announcement again. Then just as we were moving in, an alarm went off inside the house, and these thick metal plates snapped down over all the windows and doors. Some guys in another squad had already gone in through the back door, so they were trapped in there unless we moved in. We weren't gonna leave our guys, ma'am."

"So what did you do?"

"We called in our demolition crew, and they blew a hole through the plating over the picture windows in the library. We moved in, and the mutants were waiting for us. Ambush."

"When you moved in, did you see anyone that is here in this courtroom now?"

"Yes, ma'am, I did."

"Can you point that person out for us?"

Carrow pointed to Scott, who seemed to feel the gesture even if he couldn't see it, for he shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "That's him."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, ma'am. I admit it was pretty dark, because it was pretty early in the morning and sunrise was still a long way off, and there was plenty of smoke, but I could see his face clear enough. He was wearing a plastic shell-thing around his eyes, and red beams kept shooting out of it, which lit up his face real good. That's the guy, all right. Those eye-beams kept knocking my guys clean across the room. I was shouting over all the noise for him to cease fire and submit to arrest, but he ignored me."

"Are you sure he heard you?"

"Oh, yes, ma'am. I can shout real loud." He smiled a little, and there was an answering chuckle from the gallery and the jury box.

"Please continue."

"Well, I took aim at him and fired . . . I was packing rubber . . . and the slug hit him in the shoulder, but it didn't even phase him. He turned and looked at me, and shot that red eye-beam. Hit me in the chest like a freight train. I flew backward and hit a bookcase, and that set my head spinning pretty hard, and when I tried to get up somebody . . . didn't see who, this time . . . stabbed me clean through the leg." He gently patted his left knee, as though working soreness out of the still-healing injury. "Well, I tried to get at my gun, but before I could grab it somebody kicked me in the head, and out I went. Woke up on a stretcher being loaded onto a helicopter. Next to me was a stretcher with my buddy, Walt DeSilva. He was all over blood, ma'am. I knew he was dead even before I yelled at him and didn't get an answer."

Braddock went to her desk and came back with something in her hand. "Your Honor, we'd like to submit this as Prosecution's Exhibit A, found by officers on scene in the defendant's bedroom."

The judge took the thing and handed it to the bailiff. "So marked. Does the defense have any objection?"

"No, Your Honor," said Scott's lawyer.

The Bailiff handed the object back to Braddock, now with a little swing tag attached. Braddock approached the witness stand. "Sergeant Carrow, I'm handing you Prosecution's Exhibit A. Can you identify this item for us, please?"

Carrow took the thing and unfolded it so that Kurt could finally recognize the shape: Scott's visor.

"This is what the defendant was wearing on his eyes that morning, ma'am."

Scott stiffened in his chair. Kurt felt himself flinch in sympathy. If it had been his holowatch just a couple of yards away, he'd have been fantasizing about trying to grab it, too.

"Could you swear that it is exactly the same item?"

"Well, no, I couldn't swear to its being exactly the same one, but it sure looks the same. See, the sections here on either side fold out to fit over the ears, and then there's this slit in the middle to see through."

"Can you tell us anything else about the object in your hands, Sergeant?"

"Well, It's got a toggle here on the side . . ." Carrow held up the visor so that everyone could see the strip of red that ran across the visor. "If I flip it, the lens flicks out of the way." He demonstrated, and the red strip disappeared, leaving just an empty slit.

"Can you tell us why the defendant would have been wearing such a thing?"

"Well, during the fight, he had his hand up to the side of his face the whole time. Looks like this visor's been designed to let those red beams through sometimes and hold 'em back other times. A lot more controlled this way."

"Would you say that this device would enable the defendant to weaponize his mutant abilities?"

"I can't see any other reason to make it with a shutter like this."

"Thank you. Your Honor, I move that Prosecution A be introduced into evidence."

The judge nodded. "Mr. Royal, do you have any objections?"

Scott's lawyer rose out of his chair, said "No, Your Honor," and sat back down again.

"It will be admitted."

_How did they get Scott's visor? _Betsy wondered. _I remember, he left it on Avalon._

_He has two. Zat's his old one. He keeps it for a spare._

"Your Honor, the prosecution has no further questions for this witness," Braddock announced.

"Mr. Royal, your witness."

Mr. Royal stood up and came around the table, paced once before the witness box with his hands in his pockets, then asked, "Sergeant Carrow, you've stated that when your unit first approached the house, you said 'Attention all unregistered mutants: you are under arrest. Come outside immediately or we will send troops in after you'."

"Yes, sir, that's right."

"Through a megaphone."

"Yes, sir."

"Was the megaphone turned on?"

"Yes, sir."

"I imagine that must have been pretty loud."

"Yes, sir, it was very loud."

"And you further claim that when you engaged my client, you told him he was under arrest and ordered him to surrender."

"Yes, sir."

"Again, very loud."

"Yes, sir, very loud indeed."

"M-hm. And you also recall that you and your unit were carrying predominantly non-lethal weaponry."

"Yes, sir."

"Do you know when those Marines who were carrying live rounds entered the house?"

"No, sir, I'm afraid I don't. If they did enter the house, I was out cold by then."

"Thank you." Royal spun casually on his heel to face the judge's bench. "No further questions, Your Honor."

"Sergeant Carrow, you may step down," Judge Webb informed him.

Both Carrow and Royal returned to their seats.

"Vell, he vasn't very helpful," Kurt grumbled. "How much are ve paying him, exactly?"

_Hush. He knows what he's doing, and there's a long way to go yet._

* * *

Rogue finally had a hotel room to herself.

It was in New Jersey, though. Close enough to Manhattan that she could get there quickly, but far enough away that no one she knew would think to look for her. She'd considered returning to Warren's penthouse, but had decided that it was better for everyone if she kept spending his money rather than invading his house. So now there was nothing to do but wait. And watch the news.

And practice.

She'd learned to channel the flow of energy in her body under the tutelage of the same men who had taught Logan to channel his pain. Their instruction had been good . . . life-changing . . . but Japan was such a long time ago, and it had been a long time since she'd felt any need to practice regularly. Everything had just been so easy.

Well, things weren't easy anymore. And if she wanted to incapacitate Gambit without doing him any lasting harm, she had to have precise, exquisite control. She had to take his powers before he could take hers, and stop at precisely the right moment. It was more than she could manage now, but if she sat long enough on this hotel bed, and breathed, and concentrated . . .

She could kill him.

_Ah'm not gonna kill him._

He would see it as a betrayal. He'd never forgive her.

_Shut up. It'll be fahne. Ah know what Ah'm doin'._

When she couldn't stand the debate in her head anymore, she switched on the news.

"They're calling it 'The Trial of the Century' . . . it was the first day of testimony in the trial of Scott Christopher Summers, alleged leader of the mutant resistance group known as the 'X-Men.' Staff Sergeant George Carrow, one of the team leaders of the task force sent to arrest the X-Men, testified that, quote, 'I was shouting over all the noise for him to cease fire and submit to arrest, but he ignored me.' 'He turned and looked at me, and shot that red eye-beam, that hit me in the chest like a freight train.' Four other members of the task force also testified that Summers and his teammates ignored repeated commands to stand down and were clearly intent upon killing the National Guardsmen. Katie Bickley joins us from Manhattan with more."

"Jay, the street outside the courthouse has been packed with protesters all day. Summers's supporters insist that this trial is an example of anti-mutant propaganda raging out of control, and while there is certainly some anti-mutant feeling here, many of the Summers detractors insist that it's not his superhuman abilities they're worried about . . . it's the soldiers and policemen he and his teammates allegedly murdered."

"Yeah, like, I don't care if he's got super powers or what, y'know. It's just, like, another kind of gun. But he's a cop killer. That's all he is. Just a mutie cop killer. That's all."

"Thanks, Katie. Here in the studio Ronald Larsen joins us. Ron, good to see you again."

"Pleasure to be here, Jay."

"What can you tell us about how this trial's going to go? What are the strategies at play here?"

"Well, much as the protestors would like to make this into a human rights issue, legally speaking, that's really not the case. What's at issue here is honestly a question of procedure. Did the arresting team follow proper protocol when attempting to arrest Scott Summers? If they did, and the evidence given today makes a pretty strong case for that, then this trial is not going to go well for the defense at all."

Rogue scowled at the television. She felt a great desire to smash it, but then she wouldn't have anything to watch the news on. The network only had a few clips of Scott entering and leaving the courtroom, and the sight of him made her miss him fiercely. Her first friend . . . the first friend she'd ever been able to trust. He'd tell her she was making the right decision about Gambit. She wished he were here, or that she were a telepath and could call him and talk with him for a while.

_Rogue, are you there?_

Speak of the devil. Not Scott, but maybe the next best thing. If he wasn't mad at her, of course.

_Hey, Professor. You mad at me?_

_Of course not. I'm just a bit confused. Why didn't you return to Avalon with Kurt?_

_It's kinda complicated. Don't worry, sir . . . Ah ain't hurt or nothin'. Ah just needed tuh be down here. And not up there._

_Gambit was expecting you to come back. He's very upset._

_He told you that?_

_When he found out you were missing, he spent about an hour in the training gymnasium, blowing things up. _

_Oh. Yeah . . . that sounds like he's pretty upset._

_I wish you'd reconsider. I'm getting worried. I think something may have happened to Logan and Jean, and I'd rather nothing happen to anyone else._

_Things don't 'happen' tuh Logan. Logan's a thing that 'happens' tuh other people. They're fine. So'm Ah. Ah know how tuh fly under the radar, in a manner a'speakin'._

_If you're sure . . ._

_Hundred percent._

_Then stay ready. The situation is tense, and trouble could break out at any moment. Can I count on you?_

_Sure thing. Just say the word._

_Thank you. For the time being, stay away from the courthouse. Magneto and I have agreed to keep the same number of personnel on site, and if he sees you he may demand to increase his contingent._

_Ah'm not far away, but Ah'll stay put for now. _

_Excellent. Is there anything you'd like me to tell Gambit?_

_No, sir. We've said all we're gonna, Ah think._

_Are you certain? I'm starting to worry about him, too._

Rogue set her jaw. _Don't you worry, Professor. Ah'll take care of him. _


	37. Chapter 37

Chapter 37

* * *

On the second day of testimony, the prosecution changed tactics a bit. Rather than calling yet another soldier with yet another plausible, consistent story of legal arrest, maliciously planned ambush, and dead comrades, they brought up a gray-haired woman in a neat skirt and blouse who identified herself as Colleen Maher, who until her retirement three years ago was a children's advocate for the foster system of the state of Pennsylvania.

At her name, Scott recoiled visibly and tossed his head as if he were rolling his eyes under the clean off-white blindfold. Betsy snorted a bit in response. _I believe he just said 'Oh, you're kidding me!', _she relayed to Kurt.

"Please describe your relationship to the defendant," Prosecutor Braddock requested.

"I was Scott's case worker when he was a ward of the state."

"Objection!" interjected Royal. "My client has not been a ward of the state for over ten years. This witness's testimony can have no bearing on this case."

"Establishing character, your honor. As nearly every one of the defendant's associates is in hiding, we've had to go back a little farther than we would have liked to."

"Overruled. Continue, Mrs. Braddock."

"Mrs. Maher, can you tell us your impression of the defendant from when you were working with him?"

"Scott was . . . quite the puzzle. Of course, the tragic deaths of his parents would have shaken any child, especially one so young. Scott seemed to be handling it remarkably well. He was anxious to be placed in long-term foster care, and he seemed to be such a polite, well-behaved kid that it was easy enough to find him a place. He seemed to be thriving with his first set of foster parents . . . for six months, we heard only good reports from them. Then I got a call one morning. It seemed he'd smashed a hole in the ceiling of his bedroom. He was panicked and confused, and his foster parents were absolutely at a loss to explain why he'd done it or even how he'd managed it. Six weeks later, he destroyed a cabinet in his school classroom. Four weeks after that, it was the family's car. He kept claiming that he hadn't done anything, and he was so panicked and upset that it was hard not to believe him. Eventually, his foster parents asked that he be placed in a different home. He was rejected from another four foster homes over the next six months. The destructive episodes became increasingly frequent. Finally, he refused to open his eyes at all and was referred to a clinical psychologist, who diagnosed him with a dissociative disorder."

"Could you clarify for the court what you mean when you say 'dissociative disorder'?"

"Of course. I mean that the trauma of losing his parents forced his mind to create a coping mechanism in which he would periodically disassociate from himself, express his subconscious anger in random destruction, and then not be able to remember anything that he'd done."

"And does that diagnosis remain on record?"

"It does. Persons with dissociative disorder can be episode-free for years at a time, but it's extremely problematic to pronounce such a disorder 'cured.' The mind's much too complex for that."

"What sorts of things would trigger these episodes?"

"They're generally set off by some kind of unusual stress."

"Such as being arrested by an armed task force?"

"Certainly."

"Mr. Royal, your witness."

Kurt hissed his displeasure. "Scott's not crazy!"

_I KNOW. Now for the last time, will you kindly keep your indignant commentary to yourself? _Betsy snapped at him.

Royal stood up, leaning on the table for a moment as though he needed a few breaths to think of what he was going to say. Then he headed out to the open floor in front of the witness box, paced a lap with his hands in his pockets, and asked, "Mrs. Maher, when was the last time you spoke with my client?"

"I believe he was about thirteen."

"How was he doing then?"

"He seemed to be doing much better. By that point he'd been placed in the custody of Charles Xavier."

"How long had it been since he'd experienced one of these 'dissociative episodes,' as you call them?"

"As far as he or his guardian ever told me, the episodes stopped once he moved to Bayville."

"At the time you were working with Scott, were you aware of the existence of an X-gene, or the possibility that genetically advanced persons might possess superhuman abilities?"

"I thought such things were purely science fiction."

"So you didn't consider the possibility that these episodes might have been happening because Scott's eyes had involuntarily decided to fire a destructive energy beam out of his face."

"How could I have considered any such thing?"

"Well, the possibility was out there. Both Charles Xavier and Moira MacTaggart had already published papers on the topic of superhuman abilities through genetic mutation."

"I'm a social worker, not a geneticist. I had no reason to know about any such research."

"And so lacking any X-gene-related explanation for the destructive episodes that kept happening around this little boy, you concluded that he must be acting out violently and forgetting about it?"

"That was the only reasonable conclusion to draw."

"Mrs. Maher, has Scott ever been re-evaluated since his move to the Xavier Institute?"

"Not by our department."

"In light of the now-established fact that my client is X-gene positive, and the nature of his powers, is it possible that he was misdiagnosed?"

"I really couldn't say. It would take a clinical psychologist to make that kind of call."

"Would the knowledge of my client's genetic powers have made a difference in how you handled his case?"

"Objection! Asking for speculation on the part of the witness."

"Sustained."

"Beg your pardon, Your Honor. Let me rephrase. Mrs. Maher, if you were now to receive into your custody a child in a similar situation to Scott's . . . who seemed to be inflicting damage without motivation or memory, beyond what a normal child should have been able to accomplish empty-handed . . . what course of action would you recommend, in your professional opinion?"

"It's hard to make such a call from hypotheticals."

"Give us your best educated guess."

"Well, courses of action could range from therapy to medications to institutionalization, but if the behavior were characterized by evidence of something beyond a normal child's ability, the best choice would probably be to send the child to the Xavier Institute. Scott seems to have done well there, as have a number of other children who've been referred there by various states."

"I see. Thank you very much. No further questions, Your Honor."

* * *

"That was low," Scott observed when he heard Royal sit down next to him.

"Can't blame them. You're on the books as a nut job. Hard to pass up that kind of opportunity. Hopefully I undercut that, but it's hard to tell." He felt Royal's hand squeeze his shoulder reassuringly. "Hang in there. We'll get our turn."

* * *

Life on Avalon had been branching out into all the comfortable facets of normalness. Evenings had found some people curled up with books in the public room that had been labeled 'Library: Sit Down and Shut Up,' while on the floor below the more rambunctious mutants assembled around the game console that one enterprising soul had thought to bring with her and indulged in tournaments. The gym alternated between 'Basketball night' and 'Soccer night.' A few people of varying ages had started a chess club; another group were putting together a (for lack of a better term) 'garage' band. One kid was even offering nightly lessons on, of all peculiar skills, contact juggling (telekinetics only allowed if they promised not to cheat).

Scott's trial brought nearly all of it to a screeching halt.

Instead of books or games, sports or hobbies, everyone found floor space in the largest of the conference rooms and watched the news projected on the wall.

"Shocking developments today in the trial of Scott Summers. Colleen Maher, former children's advocate for the state of Pennsylvania, testified that Summers was diagnosed with dissociative disorder when he was eleven years old."

Gambit was sitting in the corridor outside, listening to the broadcast through the open door and shuffling and re-shuffling his cards. It was a fresh deck; he'd 'picked up' a few new packs on the most recent supply run (the wholesale burglary of a Wal-Mart distribution warehouse in San Francisco). Fifty-two explosives tucked into one little pocket. The better to blow into little shreds the silver-tongued liars claiming that Scott Summers was a nutcase. Honestly. Scott was so sane it was downright annoying.

_Brrrrrrrrrrrt_, went the cards as they flickered through his fingers. It was a purring, self-satisfied sound. _Brrrrrrrrt. _Like they knew all the destruction they could cause. Like they were impatient to get out there and make some trouble.

He sorted through the cards, pulled out the queen of hearts and the ace of spades, spun them through his fingers, shuffled them back in. _Brrrrrrrrrrrrrt. _Like a dangerous animal growling in its sleep.

Rogue was afraid of him.

"The prosecutor is grasping at straws here," said a voice on the news that Gambit had already come to recognize as the head of Scott's defense team. "This was a misdiagnosis of Mr. Summers that was made long before anyone involved had any idea of the existence of the X-gene or what it could do. No one who sits down and talks to this young man can have any doubts that he is as sane as the rest of us."

Another day of waiting come and gone. He still didn't know what he was going to do.

* * *

The only English news channel that the hotel got was the BBC. Logan, Jean, and Laura all sat in the girls' room to watch the broadcast.

"In the United States, the trial of American mutant Scott Summers is complicated by testimony alleging that he has been diagnosed with a dissociative disorder, causing periods of destructive behavior followed by memory loss. They allege that a dissociative episode may account for his attacking members of the New York National Guard and US Marines that were sent to arrest him earlier this month for failure to register his abilities. Defense counsel insists that this is a misdiagnosis, made before the X-gene and its implications were properly understood."

"Explain 'dissociative disorder'," Laura ordered the room in general, not removing her eyes from the screen.

"You ever go berserk when you were cornered?" Logan asked.

"Yes," said Laura, as though this were completely normal.

"That, plus blackouts."

"Convenient."

"Yeah, no kidding. Load of crap, though. Scott barely even knows how to lose his temper."

Jean watched the recycled news footage of the man who was technically still her boyfriend being led out of the courtroom by his lawyer's hand on his shoulder. The neat white blindfold across his eyes gave him a tragic, almost prophetic look, but he stood up straight and walked confidently, despite not being able to see where he was going.

_Be brave, Scott. Not for me. Just be brave because you are a brave man, and because lots of good people are counting on you. I know you can do that._

The coverage of Scott's case only lasted a couple of minutes, but they kept watching anyway, all too lost in their own thoughts to bother changing the channel. When the news ended, and an old episode of _Blackadder_ came on, Jean turned to Laura and found her asleep on the coverlet.

"She's out already?" Logan asked, incredulous. "It's not even nine."

"I'm glad," said Jean. "Sleep does a lot for healing, both physically and psychologically. If she's sleeping more, it's a sign that her energy is being used for something."

"Let's hope." Logan leaned over and touched Laura's shoulder. When he got no response, he eased one arm under her shoulders and the other under her knees. "Get the blanket, would ya?"

Jean, still wary of getting too close to Laura while she was asleep, pulled back the blankets telekinetically and let Logan pull them back into place once he'd set Laura down with her head on a pillow.

"Come on," he told her, smiling a bit. "Let's take a walk."

The hotel was in the middle of a shopping district that was almost like a kind of outdoor mall. The streets were wide and paved with pretty, slightly irregular rockwork, and planters filled with yet more decorative cabbages divided the lanes of foot traffic. Though it was already quite dark and undeniably chilly, the stores and streets were brightly lit, and a vibrant but not too dense crowd of Korean students and young adults wandered freely, chattering in their lilting, bubbling language. Incomprehensible pop music spilled out of various stores, and girls in parkas and extremely tall platform boots danced casually to it while handing out coupons or samples of expensive lotion. Since they'd landed in Seoul, Jean hadn't even bothered to leave the hotel, and the color and noise out here were a bright, delightful contrast to the demure professionalism inside.

She hadn't even bothered to leave the hotel. She was in Seoul, in Asia, on the other side of the world from everything she'd ever known, and she hadn't even troubled herself to go outside. How ridiculous. But when was the last time she'd troubled herself to explore outside of Bayville, either?

Logan wrapped his hand around hers and let his thumb brush across her knuckles, enjoying the contrast of his skin's roughness against her smoothness. She grinned, and let her head loll gently onto his shoulder. Though they were surrounded by people, no one was bothering much about them beyond an occasional admiring glance at Jean's exotic red hair. There was a sense of privacy between the two of them, hiding in the anonymous crowd.

"You know you're giving all this up," Logan told her.

She lifted her head to look at him. "Giving up all what? Walking?"

"All this." He indicated the seemingly endless array of stores hawking clothing, cosmetics, music, and fast food. "Middle-class respectability."

Jean considered. "So you're worried that, even though I've decided to give up my home, my family, my best friend, and my job . . . for lack of a better word for what we do . . . I might decide that loving you is not as important to me as a new pair of designer jeans?" She eyed a pair of jeans a mannequin was displaying. "Particularly jeans six inches too short for me?"

He chuckled. "Just sayin'. When I'm not at the house, my life gets pretty rough-and-tumble. You're used to havin' a warm bed every night, and money to spend, but that ain't always how it is out there. Just ask Rogue."

"I don't _want_ to ask Rogue," said Jean. "I want Rogue to have to ask _me_." The fierceness in her voice surprised even her. Evidently that streak of jealousy over Logan and Rogue's bond was still there.

Logan heard it, and squeezed her hand, discreetly reassuring her. "I just want you to know you can still back out, if you want."

"And you'd be fine with that."

"Well, I didn't say 'fine'."

She laughed, and was delighted to see that subtle, in-joke smile tease across his face.

"If I go with you, will I get to use my powers to help people?" Jean asked, though she already knew the answer.

"You'd do that anyway. The trick's getting you to stop."

"Will I be learning?"

He didn't bother to answer that one; he just chuckled, seeing where she was going with this.

"Will I be with someone who loves me?"

"You know the answer to that."

She stopped walking, pulling him to as stop, too. "Then why in the world would I want to go back to the Institute? Everything I really care about is here."

His deep brown eyes searched hers, looking for hesitation or uncertainty, but finding none. "Yeah," he said at last. "I know what you mean."

She let her attention wander back to the shop window. "And you know," she added conversationally, "if ever I get this horrible craving where I just _have_ to have a new pair of jeans _right now_, I can always call Gambit. I'd bet he'd be up for treating me to a late-night mall crawl."

Logan laughed, and pulled her off-balance just for the fun of it, and hand in hand they wandered through the streets of Seoul.

* * *

He kissed her that night, after the streets were dark and quiet, and Jean had started yawning. In the shadow of their hotel, away from the glaring lights of the lobby doors, he kissed her, able to wait but not wanting to . . . not when she was glowing with laughter and hope and excitement, not when the whole world lay in front of them.

Some part of him, the part that still remembered all too vividly the little girl in ponytails that she used to be, was afraid of frightening her by moving too fast. That part of him was astonished at the ardor with which she kissed him back. This was no little girl, no teenager—she was an adult woman, every inch, and her mouth and her scent told him that frightening her was now something he'd find very difficult to do. Hell, in another second she was going to start scaring _him_.

For nearly a year he'd been driving himself half crazy with the desire to touch her like this. Worth every second.

They stopped by silent mutual consent when they were both out of breath. They wouldn't go any farther . . . not now, when everything was so uncertain, when Scott still didn't know. It was all right. They had all the time in the world.

He was happy. He knew he shouldn't be. Unqualified happiness made him nervous; it brought with it the looming dread that there would be a bitter price to pay for it later on. But it was so hard to think about consequences with Jean Gray in his arms, laughing a little with every breath. Consequences could be tomorrow's problem. So could worry. So could guilt.

"I love you," he admitted, and just like the first time he'd said it, the words hurt . . . only then it had been the pain of loss, and now it was something else entirely. A good hurt.

"Tell me that every day."

"You got it, darlin'."


	38. Chapter 38

Chapter 38

* * *

Principal Kelly's testimony was painful to listen to.

Scott know that he should technically be thinking of the man as _Mayor_ Kelly, but he didn't want to. It was hard to feel any obligation to use the proper honorific for a man who spent fifteen minutes telling the jury all about every single thing you accidentally broke in high school.

"This young man," Kelly seethed, "is an unquestioned menace to society! He's unpredictable and dangerous, and should be locked up."

"I hate this," Scott whispered to Royal.

"Relax. You'll cheer up on the cross-examination."

"Thank you, Mayor Kelly," said DA Braddock. "Mr. Royal, your witness."

Royal gave Scott a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "Watch this."

He stood up, and Scott could hear him pacing the floor again. "Mayor Kelly," he began, and his voice had a tone in it that Scott was coming to recognize: friendly, polite, with just a hint of tension in it that suggested he was working up to a punchline. "In the years you served as principal of Bayville High, what measures did you take to prevent all these altercations between your human and mutant students?"

"As a principal, there was only so much I _could_ do. I argued to the school board that the mutants needed to be expelled, but was never able to persuade them to vote in our favor."

"You must have misunderstood the question. I didn't ask what you'd done to get mutants expelled. I asked what you'd done to prevent human/mutant conflicts."

"I believe I answered that."

"What is your school's policy on bullying, Mayor Kelly?"

"We had a no-tolerance policy, just like every other public school in New York."

"And when dealing with the incidents you've shared with the court, how was that no-tolerance policy applied?"

"I made sure that Summers and his cohorts were disciplined to the full extent of the school's policies."

"After, of course, ascertaining that you were punishing the right party. Scott _was_ the instigator in all these cases, correct?"

"Yes, that's correct."

"How did you ascertain that?"

"What do you mean, 'how did I ascertain it'?"

"How do you know who started it? Does Bayville have a system of security cameras?"

"Certainly not. Bayville is a safe community. Security cameras are an extreme measure, only appropriate in areas where they're truly needed."

"So when you asked 'who started it,' it was one student's word against another?"

"Not—"

"When you joined the mayoral race, Mr. Kelly, what was your campaign platform?"

"I was campaigning on a number of issues."

"Including the issue of 'mutant control'?"

"That was a major part of my platform, yes."

"And the frequent alterations at the school must have shown the voters just how crucial it was to have a pro-control man in office."

"The citizens of Bayville were calling for change."

"Would they have been calling quite so loudly if there hadn't been so many incidents at the high school?"

"I don't see what you're implying," said Kelly, though his tone made it perfectly obvious that he did, and didn't like it.

"I'm implying, Mayor Kelly, that you had a vested interest in making sure that human/mutant altercations continued. I'm implying that you did nothing about the bullying problem at your school because you knew full well that it was going to further your political career. I respectfully submit that you allowed young men and women under your care, including Scott Summers, to be continually provoked and harassed so that they would be forced to incriminate themselves and you could be mayor."

"That is slanderous, sir, and it is deeply insulting. I took my responsibilities as mayor of Bayville High absolutely seriously, and I defy you to prove otherwise."

"And I defy you, sir, to prove that my client ever, even once, acted in anything other than self-defense, or the defense of others. You had a hero walking the halls of your school and you treated him like a criminal for your own selfish ends."

"OBJECTION!" roared Braddock.

"Mr. Royal!" Judge Webb snapped.

"No further questions."

Royal returned to his seat and whispered to Scott. "You are missing a priceless expression on that man's face right now. I hope one of the sketch artists caught it."

"You were right," Scott whispered back. "I do feel better."

"Glad to hear it."

"That was everything I ever wanted to say to him. Well, almost everything. You forgot to mention that he should give back all of Jean's sports trophies."

"We'll put that on the 'To-Do' list for a civil suit later on. _Don't _smile."

Scott, who had been starting to grin, immediately schooled his face back into solemn professionalism.

"They're running out of ideas," Royal assured him. "Your turn's coming soon."

* * *

"Gambit."

"_Tu veux quoi_?" Gambit demanded, rudely.

He was in the gym, practicing with his adamantium staff. The truce was still on, so there was nobody to fight; Avalon's warehouse was stocked for a month, so there was nothing to steal; Rogue was still incommunicado, so there was nothing to say. At least, so he'd thought.

"I wish to speak to you," Magneto told him.

Gambit continued his staff drill. He knew it was a futile gesture, but futile gestures seemed to be all he had to work with right now. After a few seconds, he felt the staff lock into place, nearly dislocating his shoulder.

"I am accustomed to having people listen when I speak," Magneto informed him.

"Well, ain't we all just havin' learnin' experiences dis month," Gambit drawled. Since there was no chance of his being able to continue his drills until Magneto felt like letting him, he leaned against the floating staff and crossed his arms in his customary 'I'm listening, but that doesn't mean I like you' posture. It bugged Scott; chances were Magneto wouldn't like it much more.

"I have a proposal," Magneto began.

"I'm flattered, but I t'ink we should just be friends."

"I want to know just what you're willing to do to save your people."

"From you?"

"From all of it."

"I dunno if you haven't picked up on dis yet, but _I don' work for you no more. _We is _not_ on de same side."

"We are on the same side!" Magneto snapped. "Do you truly think I wish any harm on any of Charles's students? They are _mutants_. Many of them are children. Charles has been my friend and colleague for over thirty years. Why would I hurt any of them if I didn't have to?"

"Well, dere's de kicker, ain't it? 'If you didn' have to'."

"Fighting for the freedom of our people is more important than any one individual's life. But there is a way to finish this without the loss of any mutant blood, and I need to know if you will help me."

"So de trial's as good as over in your mind, den?"

"It was always as good as over. Human justice is a joke. You, of all people, should know that."

That was a fair point. Gambit let it pass unchallenged.

"If Senator Creed were to be removed from the equation," Magneto offered, "the anti-mutant campaign would fall apart. He is the lynchpin. The king."

"Removed from de equation," Gambit echoed.

"We'll both save a great deal of time if you skip the part where you pretend to be shocked. You know perfectly well that I'll do what I think is necessary."

"'Shocked' ain't de word for it." The staff was digging uncomfortably into Gambit's back now; he stood up and unfolded his arms. "Get Sabertooth t'do it. He likes dat sort of t'ing. Even if it is his own son, probably."

"I can't."

"Ain't he takin' your orders no more either?"

"Sabertooth is useless in this. Charles can see him. He'll be expecting me to make a move on Creed, and will be watching everyone he knows to be involved with me. You are the only one who can reach Creed without being detected by Cerebro."

"An' de one de prof trusts enough t'not be watchin' like a hawk."

"I see you follow my logic."

Gambit turned his back and gave his immobilized weapon a futile tug. "Gimme my staff back. I earned it, an' it's none'a yours."

The staff fell obligingly into his hand.

He collapsed the weapon and tucked it into its pocket. "I killed a man once," he observed, almost conversationally. "Fair fight. Self-defense. Still didn' enjoy it."

"You've killed men more than once. Many of those marines died, and you were as culpable for that as Cyclops was."

"An' you're suggestin' dat since I'll fight off men wid guns invadin' a house full'a my own people, I'll be fine wid sneakin' up on a man I never met but once an' puttin' a bullet t'rough his head." His hand strayed involuntarily to the weight of the new staff in his jacket. "Or a blade."

"The man that gave those soldiers their orders. And there will be more orders if he isn't stopped. You, and you alone, have a chance to stop this war before it starts. Whatever happens in the future will be hinged upon your decision."

"Don' you put dis on me. Dis war's yours."

"This war is Senator Creed's. I don't intend to let him keep it. This would be the least bloody way to assure that . . . for humans _and_ for mutants."

Gambit stood still, and was silent, neither agreeing nor protesting.

"If it's Charles you're worried about, I can provide you an alibi. He never has to know. Nor do any of his people."

"De ones who matter would know."

Magneto nodded, acknowledging the possibility. "I can make you do nothing against your will, and I will not insult you by offering payment. I know this is not your guild's purvey. I just wanted to make sure that you've considered all the implications of what may happen over the next few days."

"We done here?"

"Certainly. I've been in court all day, and am anxious for a few hours' sleep."

Magneto left him alone. Gambit opened his staff again and resumed drilling, working his body to silence his mind.

* * *

_Tu veux quoi?_: What do you want?


	39. Chapter 39

Chapter 39

* * *

Jean fought to keep her hair from blowing every direction at once. Between the wind at the top of the hotel tower and the forceful breeze made by the idling helicopter blades, it seemed like her own hair was trying to strangle her.

Mariko was ready to go back to Japan. And Laura, all her worldly possessions in a GAP shopping bag, was as ready as she would ever be to go with her.

The four of them stood facing one another as though in two teams: Mariko and Laura versus Logan and Jean. Two to get on the luxurious corporate chopper, and two to climb into Velocity. Two for Japan, two for the States. Two towards safety, two into danger.

"I can still come with you," Laura told Logan. "I can fight."

"I know, Kid. But just because you can shouldn't mean you have to. You've seen enough fighting already." Logan, braver than Jean would ever be, reached out to Laura and hugged her hard. "We're coming back for you. Don't you worry."

Jean, without even trying, could feel Laura's doubt. No one had ever cared about her enough to come back. Of course, she hadn't cared enough about then to give a curse whether they came back or not. This was different. This was new for her, and she was scared.

When Logan let go of Laura, Jean stepped up and offered the book in her hands. "Here. I got this for you."

The book was _Little House on the Prairie._ She'd bought it in a bookstore in the shopping center. It was peppered with Korean footnotes, and the illustrations were drawn anime-style, but the text was in English.

"It's the next book after yours," Jean explained, raising her voice enough to be heard over the noise of the helicopter engine. "There are lots of them. Laura has a long life and lots of adventures." As she handed over the book, she hoped and wished and prayed that the name would prove a talisman. All Lauras needed to grow up and live long, happy, normal lives.

Laura only nodded to acknowledge receipt of the book, but she gripped it tightly in both hands as though afraid someone would tear it away from her.

"If you think you're gonna lose your cool," Logan warned, "you run. You run for the mountains. We'll be able to find you; don't worry about that."

Laura nodded again. The jury was still out on whether she believed him or not, and Jean still refused to read her mind against her will, but that didn't matter at this point. They _would_ come back. Everything would be all right.

Logan and Mariko bowed to one another, the gesture more intimate and meaningful than any embrace Jean had ever seen. Then Mariko turned to the helicopter and accepted the co-pilot's hand to assist her climbing in. Laura followed her, entering the craft with one sudden, grasshopper-like jump. The door slid shut, and the chopper lifted away.

"There she goes," said Jean, for lack of anything better to say.

"Yep."

"What shall we do now?"

Logan shrugged. "Save the world?"

"I don't know. It might be dangerous."

"Well, I guess we better not, then."

Jean looked over at Logan. He was smiling, as much as he ever did, as he glanced back at her.

"I would like a good hot dog, though," Jean observed.

"Fair enough. Let's go get hot dogs."

"New York hot dogs?"

"They make 'em in other places?"

Jean grinned, and followed him into Velocity.

"The fuel tanks might take us as far as Saskatuan, if we're lucky," she observed as she closed the hatch behind her.

"We can catch a train from there. You want first shift?" He indicated the pilot's seat.

"All yours."

Logan sat and revved up Velocity's quiet engine. Jean came up behind him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, letting her chin rest on the top of his head. "Are you scared?"

Logan paused a moment, then reached up and wrapped his hand around her arm. "You've got more to be afraid of than I do, darlin'."

"You're right," Jean agreed. The image of Scott, shocked, hurt, and angry, forced its way into her mind again; she forced it back out. Dreading it wouldn't make it any easier. And hard as telling him would be, it would be better than keeping him in the dark. She wouldn't let herself play Guenivere to Logan's Lancelot and Scott's Arthur. She'd make it through this, and emerge stronger and happier than she'd been.

She bent over the back of Logan's chair and pressed her lips to his temple. "But I'm not afraid," she murmured.

Velocity rose off the helicopter pad, turned her nose northeast, and left the safety of Seoul behind.

* * *

"Scott Summers takes the stand in his own defense today—"

"The long-anticipated moment. Scott Summers is due to testify—"

"National guard troops patrol the streets of New York to keep order as protesters flood into the city from all over the nation—"

Rogue watched the news from a coffee shop in New Jersey. Gambit watched it from a space station in orbit around the planet. Kurt watched it live from the third row back.

Royal stood up. In a clear, ringing voice intended to be heard by every reporter in the room, he announced, "Your Honor, the defense calls Mr. Scott Summers."

Scott stood up. The suit made him look older than he was, and the already-quiet court got even quieter in response to the sight of the solemn, proud young man facing a judge he couldn't see. The silence was so absolute that Kurt could hear Royal whispering to Scott, probably giving him directions to get out from behind the table without bumping into anything.

Scott walked up to the witness stand steadily and confidently, without the slightest hesitation to indicate he mistrusted Royal's guiding hand on his shoulder. Unlike a few of the earlier witnesses, who had chosen to be sworn in without the old-fashioned ritual of a hand on the Bible, Scott willingly allowed his hand to be guided onto the weighty black book. His fingers explored the cover for a few seconds, feeling the title embossed into the leather.

"Do you swear or affirm," asked the bailiff, "to the best of your knowledge, that the statements you are about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?"

"So help me God," Scott added. "Yes, I do."

The bailiff withdrew, and Scott sat down.

"Would you please state your name, for the record?" Royal asked.

"My name is Scott Christopher Summers."

"And your place of residence?"

"Well, just now it's a jail cell in lower Manhattan, but most days I live at the Xavier Institute for the Gifted in Bayville, New York."

"And would you mind giving the court a quick run-down of how you came to live there?"

"Of course. Like you've already heard, I became a foster kid after my parents passed away, and staying in a foster home became . . . tricky . . . when things started getting smashed to pieces in front of my eyes for no reason I could understand." Scott reached up to his face as he spoke and rubbed at his eye through the blindfold. "I was scared to death. I didn't know if I was going crazy or what. All I knew was that the bad things didn't happen as long as I kept my eyes shut, so that was what I did. For about three months."

"How old were you then?"

"I was eleven years old."

"Please go on."

"Well, lucky for me, one of the therapists who'd been assigned to work with me had just been to a conference where Professor Xavier gave the keynote address. She called him and asked him to consult on my case, so he came down from New York to evaluate me. He was the first person to _believe_ me and the unbelieveable things that I was saying. He eventually got certified as a foster parent so he could take me in. I was home-schooled there for about six months while he and Doctor MacTaggart studied my ability and helped me find ways to manage it."

"And you've been there ever since?"

"Yeah. When I came, Ororo Monroe was already living there . . . just renting a room while she went to college. She helped a lot with my home-schooling, and learned to read Braille so she could teach it to me. Then when we found Jean Gray, who was just starting to manifest as a telepath, I was able to help her kind of the same way Ororo helped me. And I learned that I love being able to support other people while they're learning about their powers. So even though I'm an adult now, I'm still living at the Institute. It's where I can do the most good in the world."

Kurt grinned, thinking back to his first few terrifying days at the Institute. He'd been manifest his whole life, and so hadn't needed the same powers-coaching that a lot of the other kids had, but Scott had helped him adjust to life in America. Those had been good old days.

"Scott, please tell us everything that you remember from the morning of the third."

Scott nodded, sat back in his chair, and took a deep breath. "Well, I'd gone to bed at about eleven o'clock. The house's security alarm woke me up again."

"What time was that?"

"I have no idea. I was running for the hallway before I got my visor on, so I never got a chance to look at a clock."

"Are you a heavy sleeper?"

"Not really. I can sleep through most thunderstorms, but usually wake up when Jean's alarm clock goes off, and she's in the next room over."

"Did you hear Sergeant Carrow announce through a megaphone that you were under arrest?"

"I didn't hear anything like that. The first noise anything made, as far as I could tell, was the house alarm letting us know that someone was inside who wasn't supposed to be there."

"Is it possible that you slept through Sergeant Carrow's announcement?"

"If I did, his megaphone probably needed new batteries."

This won a chuckle from the jury and audience.

"What did you do when you woke up?"

"Like I said, I grabbed my visor and ran for the hallway. We'd . . ." He hesitated here, as though embarrassed to go on. "We'd been running drills to evacuate the house, just in case we were attacked."

"Just in case you were arrested, you mean?"

"No, I don't. We'd all discussed it, and decided that we'd consent to arrest. We wanted to engage in a peaceful protest, not start a war. But we wanted to be ready to run if the higher-ups decided that dead mutants were easier to arrest."

"Isn't that a little paranoid?"

Scott shrugged. "I've got a bullet scar on my leg that says it was perfectly reasonable." His injury had been established yesterday by testimony of the physician who'd examined him after his arrest.

"Please continue."

Scott did, briefly explaining the evacuation plan and the telepathic net that had allowed him to know what was going on with everyone else on the team.

"Another clarifying question, if I could . . . how did you know that these soldiers weren't here to arrest you legally?"

"Well, I don't know how it works in real life, but on tv, when the cops arrest someone, they usually say 'you're under arrest'."

"And no one said that to you?"

"Not a word. They started shooting as soon as they got the wall blasted open."

"Could they have been shooting rubber bullets?"

"Only if rubber bullets go through people's legs." Scott shook his head. "They weren't shooting rubber. I only got hit once, but my teammate Wolverine must've been shot forty times. I was standing behind him . . . I _saw_ the bullets coming out of his back. They were live rounds. I'm absolutely sure."

"Your colleague Wolverine, as we understand, can't be killed by bullets. Is that correct?"

"Yeah, that's right."

"So in his case, live rounds would still have to be considered non-lethal force."

"For his case, sure. But not for me, or Gambit, or Bobby Drake."

"Who is Bobby Drake?"

"One of the underclassmen. He was downstairs in the basement, running for the aircraft hangar. A military sniper shot him in the back."

There was a murmur in the courtroom, but Kurt couldn't be sure if it was of dismay, disbelief, or anger.

"How do you know that?"

"I heard him in my head."

"What did he say?"

"He yelled 'Sniper! Sniper!' and started shouting at the other students to leave him behind and get to the plane. Then he said he was gonna die."

"Did he?"

Scott shook his head. "Two of his classmates went back for him . . . Sam Guthrie and Jamie Madrox. They all made it out alive. Once they did, we on the ground floor ran for it."

"You ran for it."

"Like rabbits. I didn't want to stay in that firefight one more second than I had to."

"Because you were afraid you'd be killed."

"Not really. I've been in life-and-death situations before. But the sooner we got out, the faster the downed soldiers could get medical attention."

"You wanted them to get medical attention?"

"Of course I did!"

"But _you _and your colleagues were the ones that injured them."

"To make them stop shooting at us, just long enough for the others to escape. I didn't want to hurt them. They're US servicemen! My gosh . . . my dad was Air Force! I would _never, ever_ shoot at an American serviceman for any reason except self-defense. Those Marines had spouses, and kids, and parents. You think I'd ever want to put some other kid through what I went through when all I had left of my father was a box with a flag on it?"

"But you did."

"I did. Because they were invading my house and trying to kill the people that it is my job to protect. Any Marine would understand why I fought back."

Someone in the back of the gallery screamed out. "You lying mutie bastard! How _dare_ you!"

Scott recoiled from the noise like he'd been slapped. The judge's gavel rapped sharply against the wood of the podium. "Bailiff, please escort that person out of my courtroom. If there is another such disturbance, it will be grounds for arrest."

Royal waited for the agitated murmuring to die down again before he continued. "Scott, I'm afraid that our interrupting commentator has a point. We've had a lot of witnesses on this stand who've all stated very plainly that this operation was conducted as a legal arrest and that no lethal force was used. I'm afraid it's your word against theirs."

"Actually no, it isn't. Our house has a DEFCON-style lockdown system. Do you honestly think it doesn't have security cameras?"

"According to the testimony of Operations Specialist Hernandez, your house's security camera system was irreparably damaged during the fighting."

"Our primary system may have been. Not the secondary system. After we all made it to safety, we sent a team back in to recover the recordings."

Royal walked back to his table, reached into his briefcase, and pulled out a small black USB drive. "Your Honor, I'd like to present the recordings of the Xavier Institute's backup security system and have them introduced into evidence as Defense D."

"Objection!" Braddock snapped, lunging up out of her chair. "We were _not _informed of the existence of any such recording."

Royal turned to her, grinning smugly. "I humbly submit that I'm defense and don't have to inform you of anything, Madam DA."

"You could have forged every frame!"

"We have six independent expert witnesses all ready to testify that we did nothing of the sort."

"Prosecution requests that our own experts be allowed to evaluate this evidence before allowing it to be presented."

"So ruled."

Royal presented the USB drive to DA Braddock with a flourish. "I have copies," he told her.

"I resent your implication," Braddock told him as she handed the drive off to the younger lawyer that was acting as her assistant. He pocketed it and headed up the center aisle, out of the courtroom.

"In the meanwhile," Royal said, turning back to the witness stand, "Let's return to the point of why you refused to register in the first place."

Scott's examination went on for another three hours. Royal went over everything . . . from the original Mutant Registration Act all the way through Scott breaking into the White House. Scott answered everything patiently and cheerfully, occasionally winning another chuckle from the listening audience with some riposte of self-deprecating humor. He mentioned his teammates frequently, by first names rather than combat names, evoking their personalities and the bonds of friendship between them: Jean's classiness and common sense, Kitty's innocent charm, even Kurt's enthusiasm for practical jokes and Bobby's dislike of authority. He was drawing a picture for everyone in the courtroom: not of super-powered monsters, but of regular kids who just happened to have superpowers, the same way other kids had ADHD or seasonal allergies. Even Kurt was feeling warm and fuzzy about himself (in a manner of speaking) by the time the judge declared a one-hour lunch break.

* * *

As soon as the lunch recess was announced, Professor Xavier turned on Avalon's makeshift Cerebro and settled the helmet around his head. _Betsy?_

_Hello, Professor._

_How's it going?_

_Much better than I'd expected. Your Scott is quite the public speaker. HIs lawyer has used the security camera footage to buy him more time in front of the jury. _

_Has the footage been presented yet?_

_Not yet. We're to expect it after lunch. The DA has been looking more and more annoyed, which is promising. One moment, please. _"Tomato and provolone on wheat."

_What was that?_

_It's Pietro's turn to fetch lunch for everyone. Queues are shorter if we send him or Kurt up to midtown. _

_Ah. _Charles smiled, knowing that Betsy could sense the expression, even if she wasn't adept enough to see it. _Is Senator Creed still in attendance?_

_He's just leaving now._

_And Eric?_

_Watching him._

Charles nodded. _That's to be expected._

_I don't like it, Charles. I wish you were down here yourself. If he breaks the truce, I can't guarantee I'll be able to protect the senator. _

_I'm certain . . . fairly certain . . . he won't try to assassinate Creed in the courtroom. But he'll try something. I've played chess with the man for thirty years. He's always thinking five moves ahead, and he never loses sight of the king. Keep a close watch on him. _

_I'll do my best._

* * *

Scott hadn't been able to eat anything. Royal let him skip lunch, but made him drink half a glass of water. "A dry throat makes you sound like you're lying, and drinking while you're on the stand makes you look nervous."

"I am nervous!"

"No, you're not. You're calm as a summer's morning because you know you're going to be on your way home by this time next week."

"She's going to rip me apart."

"Yes, she is. That's her job. You're gonna stay calm. And do you know why you're going to stay calm? Because your teammates are counting on you to get them safely home."

Scott took a deep breath. "You're right."

"I know I'm right. Let's go."

By the time Scott got back on the stand, he'd started feeling hungry. Well, too late now. He swallowed, took a deep breath, and focused on relaxing while Judge Webb called the court back to order.

"Mr. Summers," said D.A. Braddock; Scott turned his head towards the sound of her voice. "Did you know that you had broken the law by neglecting to register as a mutant?"

Scott wanted to swallow again, but resisted the impulse. "Yes, I did."

"And you knew that because of your refusal to register, you were required to serve time in prison?"

"Yes."

"That you were, and still are, a criminal?"

"As much as Rosa Parks was."

"Answer the question, Mr. Summers: are you aware that you are a criminal?"

"I am aware that I deliberately broke the law."

"And thus you are a criminal."

"Until that law is overturned, yes I am."

"Mr. Summers, you've stated earlier that you consider your powers to be nonlethal."

"Yes, that's right."

"And yet you can blow holes in walls."

"Well, you can break a hole in a wall with a hammer, but that's not a lethal weapon unless you really work at it."

He could hear the audience chuckling a little. Good; he'd been worried about that one.

"And yet seven men are dead. How do you explain that?"

Scott felt a shiver of guilt and discomfort, and let it run its course, turning his face away from the sound of the DA's voice. "From what the coroner said, most of them were probably killed by Wolverine."

"You couldn't tell at the time?"

"No, not with any certainty. Everything was happening so fast, and it was dark, and there was so much smoke."

"And yet you have quite extraordinary eyes."

"My 'extraordinary' eyes don't help me see any better than anybody else. Sometimes much worse, as you might have noticed."

"You could see enough to shoot?"

"More or less. I could see muzzle flash from the soldiers who were shooting. I used that to target."

"And could you see your teammates?"

"Enough to avoid hitting them. Gambit was charging cards, so he was easy to see, and the light from that reflected off Colossus's armor and Wolverine's claws."

"So you could see what they were doing?"

"Just a little. I was kind of busy at the time."

"So when Corporal Castonado went down, you saw the Wolverine kill him."

Scott flinched again. "I . . . did see him kill someone. I couldn't tell who."

"Mr. Summers, you've stated that you were telepathically linked with your teammates during the altercation. Is this correct?"

"Yes."

"Including the Wolverine."

"Yes."

"When you saw him kill Corporal Castonado, did you say anything to him telepathically?"

"No. There wasn't time."

"Did you know, via that link, that he intended to continue using lethal force?"

Scott felt his throat close up. When he spoke, he could hardly speak above a cracked whisper. "Yes, I did."

"And what did you do about that?"

"I kept shooting."

From the murmur that erupted in the blackness around him, he knew that hadn't gone over too well.

"You kept shooting," Braddock repeated. "Even knowing that any man you knocked down with your so-called 'nonlethal' powers would be dead within seconds?"

"Yes."

"Even knowing that the Wolverine acknowledged you as a kind of commanding officer and would have relented if you'd ordered him to?"

"He wouldn't have."

"You didn't give the order, Mr. Summers! You can't know what would have happened!"

"I didn't—"

"Were you aware that you broke the law in refusing to register, Mr. Summers?"

"What? Yes, of course I was!"

"So you were aware that you needed to be arrested."

"I wasn't—"

"And when representatives if this government came to arrest you, you _killed_ them!"

"No! Well, yes, but—"

"Mr. Summers, please tell us about the mutant called Forge."

Scott stopped in mid-protest. "Forge?" he asked, confused.

"Yes. What is his mutant ability?"

"But Forge wasn't even there."

"All testimony has been very clear on that point. Please answer the question."

"What's Forge's mutant power?"

"That's right."

"He's, uh . . . he's a builder. A fixer. A machine whisperer."

"Is that a mutant ability, or just a talent?"

"Both. Forge can make anything. Tony Stark would sell his soul to be half the mechanical engineer that Forge is."

"Who installed the security system in your house, Mr. Summers?"

Scott frowned as he thought back. "Bobby and Hank, I think."

"And who installed the auxiliary system?"

"Forge did."

"Forge, who can do anything with machines?"

"_Nearly_ anything."

"Who recovered the recordings your counsel has entered into evidence?"

"Kitty and Gambit."

"Did Forge handle the data at all before it was sent to your counsel?"

"I don't know. That was after I was arrested."

"Where are your teammates now?"

"I'm not going to tell you that."

"You are under oath, Mr. Summers."

"Yes, I am, but the location of my teammates has no bearing on this case, and revealing it would put them in danger."

"Move on, please, Madam District Attorney," Judge Webb interrupted.

"Let me rephrase my question. Is Forge with your team now?"

"He was when I left."

"So he would have had access to those recovered files before they were delivered to Mr. Royal?"

"Possibly."

"And could have tampered with them?"

"Of course not. That would take someone with video editing skills, or graphic design. Forge is an engineer."

"Can you guarantee he couldn't do it?"

"I can guarantee he _wouldn't_."

"Not good enough, Mr. Summers."

"Well, give him immunity from prosecution and I can have him here to testify for himself within fifteen minutes."

"Is he registered?"

"No, ma'am, he is not."

"Then if he sets foot in this courtroom, he will be attested."

"Then just my testimony is going to have to do. Sorry." Scott shrugged and smiled, and was rewarded with a chuckle from the distant darkness beyond the DA's voice.

"Just your word against the correlating testimony of half a Marines strike team."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Mr. Summers, are you seriously insisting that every single one of the other witnesses we've heard in this trial has been lying under oath?"

"What they've chosen to say is none of my business. I let myself be arrested so I could tell the world what really happened that night, and that's exactly what I'm doing. I'm sorry if you don't like it."

"I don't like it all, Mr. Summers. I submit to you that you've learned to be an excellent liar from years of practice in concealing your abilities. I submit that your teammate tampered with these security logs to back up your story, and I put it to you that the only truth you've told here is that you didn't kill those men—you struck them down so the Wolverine could butcher them for you."

"No!"

"No further questions, Your Honor."

Scott felt his jaw clench and his hands squeeze into fists against his knees. He wanted to fight something . . . his visor was here in this room somewhere, and so was Senator Creed . . .

_Calm down, Scott,_ said Betsy's smooth British voice in his head. _You did well. Don't spoil it now._

_I'm okay,_ Scott assured her. _But I'd be better if I could hear Jean._

_I haven't heard her, but I'm sure she's coming._

"Come on, Scott," said Royal's voice next to his ear. "You did good. Come on down. Your job's done."

Scott shook his head as he stepped down from the stand. "Unless we get really lucky, my job's only just started."


	40. Chapter 40

Chapter 40

* * *

"State your name and occupation for the record, please."

"Tyler Zibetti. I'm a computer programmer, specializing in high end security systems. My company contracts with the federal government to handle security in most of the major government facilities in D.C."

Kurt fidgeted in his seat. He'd been sitting for way too long . . . he wanted to hang from the ceiling for a while, or at least _stand up_. He was losing feeling in his tail.

Royal handed Zibetti the little black flash drive. "Tyler, what can you tell us about this?"

"We received it from your office about two weeks ago. The drive contains copies of video footage taken by a specialized network of security cameras installed at the Xavier Institute in Bayville, New York. It also contained some college student's homework assignments, but I don't think they have much bearing on this case."

Kurt grinned, and saw several other people do likewise. Gambit's leftover homework . . . it was such a comforting, homey thought.

"Can you be sure that the cameras were in the Xavier Institute?"

"Absolutely certain. These files have five separate levels of encrypted supplementary data overlying every frame of video, specifying what machine it was recorded by, when the record was made, where the machine was . . . everything you could possibly want to know. There are GPS coordinates embedded in the data. This was unquestionably recorded in the Xavier Institute on March 3rd between two and five a.m."

"Could the images have been tampered with or corrupted?"

"Not without leaving a mark. Two of the encrypted overlays are specifically to prevent tampering, and not a byte is out of place. The video was cropped from a longer recording, viewed four times, and copied twice before it reached me, but it was not altered."

"And that's your professional opinion?"

"Yes, it is."

"Would you be so good as to show the court these recordings?"

Zibetti reached down and pulled up a laptop computer he'd brought to the stand with him. He plugged in the drive while the bailiff dimmed the court room's lights and turned on the projector installed in the ceiling. An image of Zibetti's desktop appeared on the plain white wall across from the jury box. Then it was replaced with a full-screen presentation of the video viewer.

"This is the footage taken by a camera installed over the door of the library," Zibetti explained before hitting play.

The library looked normal, beyond the green tinge to everything that came from the camera's low-light mode. The normalness only lasted a few seconds; the image shuddered as explosives detonated against the exterior wall. Books toppled silently off the shelves and onto the floor, and the wallpaper between the windows bowed in and split as the steel DEFCON barrier gave.

Logan was the first on the scene. The explosion seemed to have thrown him off his feet, because he was scrambling back onto them as he came into the frame. There was a blink of muzzle flash in the hole in the wall; Logan recoiled, but didn't fall. He met the approaching soldier in the middle of the room, and there was a scuffle. The soldier's firearm landed on the carpet in pieces. The soldier himself followed a second later, knocked unconscious by a single solid blow from Logan's adamantium-reinforced scull.

Four more soldiers were inside the room by that time, but Colossus barreled two of them over on his way to block the bottleneck at the smoking hole in the wall. A tight beam of blinding light indicated that Scott was also in on the mess now. Gambit was last to show himself—he slunk along the edge of the room, probably invisible to everyone but the camera, before striking with his quarterstaff at the back of a soldier who was sheltered behind a sofa and taking aim at Scott.

It was perfectly clear when Logan saw which way the wind was blowing. He even hesitated a second to take in the mess around him, to see how outnumbered and outgunned they were. Then he stalked straight up to the nearest marine, his shoulder recoiling from a bullet like most people reacted to a horsefly bite, and stabbed both fists straight through the other man's torso. The points of his claws were clearly visible protruding from the marine's back.

Kurt felt vomit rise up in the back of his throat. He'd never seen Logan kill anybody. He clamped a hand across his mouth and around his jaw.

The video only lasted about seven minutes. It ended when Gambit left the room and, if Kurt remembered right, blew up the main staircase. The camera's view jerked sideways, dropped onto the floor, and exploded into static.

Zibetti closed the viewer window and pulled up another. "This is the feed from a camera placed in one of the corridors of the basement level."

The brightly lit hallway was blank and uninteresting until Jean ran down it as fast as her long legs could carry her. A few seconds later, Bobby followed her. He stopped in full view of the camera to count off the other underclassmen as they ran by. When Jamie passed him, he turned and ran towards the bottom of the frame.

It happened all in a second: a sliver of a black form appeared around the far corner, Bobby recoiled backward, and suddenly he was lying on his stomach with dingy dark ooze spreading out from him in every direction. There was a unified flinching gasp from all two-hundred-some people in the courtroom. Kurt saw movement out of the corner of his eye: a couple of reporters were slipping out into the hall where they could make phone calls.

Kurt winced and fidgeted, unable to take his eyes off the screen as he watched Bobby belly-crawl agonizingly slowly through the pool of blood. He should have been there to help. He had been sitting in the Blackbird, freaking out and not doing anything useful. Why hadn't he teleported back when he heard Bobby scream? He could have had him out of there by now, if he'd known what was going on . . . if he'd known exactly where to 'port . . .

But he hadn't known. _This isn't your fault_, he insisted to himself. _You did the best you could with what you knew. You did the job you were given. And Bobby is okay now._

The sniper was watching from his cover behind the wall, not shooting, not advancing . . . just waiting, rifle at the ready. It was blatantly obvious to everyone in the courtroom that this was not an arrest.

The rescue happened very fast. Jamie charged into the frame, one copy after another rushing towards the sniper. The rifle discharged over and over again, and with every blink of muzzle flash another Jamie disappeared. In the midst of all the bustle, it was easy to miss Sam shooting in, grabbing Bobby around the chest, and shooting back out. Just as suddenly, all the Jamies were gone.

The sniper, confused, leaned out a bit to get a clearer view down the passage. When he was sure it was empty, he rose from his crouch and ran down the hall after them. Zibetti ended the feed.

"There are recordings from four more cameras," he added, "But they didn't catch anything much. Just soldiers sweeping the house once the mutants were gone."

"Thank you very much, Mr. Zibetti." Royal's voice was solemn, echoing the mood of the shocked courtroom. "I don't have any more questions for you."

Nervous murmuring began to ripple through the courtroom as Royal took his seat again. Kurt saw Senator Creed share a significant look with his assistant.

DA Braddock stood up, took a moment to collect her thoughts, then asked, "Mr. Zibetti, how many mutants do you know?"

"Personally, none. Well, maybe. But no one I know has ever admitted to being a mutant."

"Does your company employ any mutants?"

"Not that I know of."

"So you've never worked with a mutant in the context of security programming?"

"No."

"Have you ever met the mutant known as Forge?"

"Never have."

"We've established that the digital video footage you examined was recorded on equipment installed by Forge, and recorded with programming he created?"

"Modified, from what I could tell."

"Modified how?"

"To make it tamper-proof. A lot of systems claim that their recordings are tamper-proof, but this is the first I've ever seen that lives up to that name. If the kid's ever allowed back into the United States, I'd like to give him a job."

A few people laughed.

"So the modifications placed in this recording system outstrip anything that you've seen done by a human designer?"

"Yes."

"With such an advanced level of programming skill (as Forge's work seems to indicate he has), is it possible that he could have modified these recordings and then erased the record of his having done so?"

"I don't see how."

"But you don't see how he could have programmed a system that good in the first place, do you?"

Zibetti admitted that he didn't.

"Can you guarantee that it is impossible for someone with mutant abilities to have modified this recording?"

"I'd be extremely surprised."

"Can you _guarantee _it?"

"Well, um . . . as I said, I've never worked with mutants. I don't have any idea what the limits of this kid's abilities might be."

"So he could have modified the record in such a way that you would never notice the tampering?"

"I doubt . . ."

"Is it _possible_, Mr. Zibetti?"

"I guess so. We still know so little about human mutation, and I'm no geneticist. At this point, pretty much anything's possible."

"Thank you. No further questions."

Kurt slouched in his seat. "If ve lose zis because ze whole vorld is too scared of _Forge_ . . ."

"The irony would certainly be noteworthy," Magneto observed dryly.

* * *

There was a party on Avalon that night. As the news endlessly recapped Scott's testimony and the reports of the video footage, the exiled mutants busted open bottles of soda and sparkling cider to toast Cyclops, the U.S. justice system, and the chance that they would all be going home in a few days. Forge, to his bewilderment and pleasure, was alternately being hailed as a genius and teased for being the most super-powered reality-bending mutant in America.

Kurt, despite being exhausted from a long day of sitting in court riding an emotional roller coaster, joined in the festivities with gusto. While he and Pietro gave a play-by-play of the day's developments to the general partying population, Betsy and Magneto disappeared into the conference room with Charles and Hank to do much the same thing, minus drinks. Sabertooth just disappeared, period.

"I'm telling you guys, you should have seen the look on Creed's face when the Ice-kid got shot," Pietro was saying. "Deer in headlights. Like this." He let his jaw go slack and bugged out his eyes. The result looked nothing like Senator Creed, but was entertaining nonetheless.

"And here's to Bobby for getting shot on camera!" Roberto raised his glass of Diet Coke to an answering chorus of "Cheers!" from the people around him. Bobby indulged in a triumphant fist-pump to acknowledge the tribute.

"And here's to Gambit, for stealing all the drinks!" Tabitha chimed in. Gambit, hanging back from the main body of the party, bowed his head in gracious acknowledgement.

"And here's to baby Michael!" Kitty cheered. Karen, sitting in the only chair in the room, grinned. Michael was too focused on nursing to care that his health was being toasted.

"To Michael, and to all the new mutants that come after him," Carol agreed, raising her glass and taking a swig. "And here's to going home."

"To going home!" the enthused chorus echoed back at her.

The noise was riotous, and the mood was effervescent. Gambit watched the party from the sidelines, but didn't join in. He wasn't ready to celebrate just yet. Instead, he slipped off to the conference room, where the meeting was just breaking up.

"Y'all better hurry if y'want a drink 'a somet'in," he informed the adults as they emerged from their conference. "We brought up 'bout six cases a'stuff, but de way t'ings is going down dere, we might be out by mornin'."

"Warning appreciated," Hank told him. Gambit watched as he, Professor Xavier, and Betsy disappeared down the corridor. Magneto didn't follow them.

"Closing arguments tomorrow?" Gambit asked without preamble.

"Yes."

"So we could have a verdict by lunchtime."

"Very likely. I doubt the jury's deliberations will take long one way or the other."

"Den I'm comin' down' wid y'."

Magneto raised one polite eyebrow. "Indeed."

"Just in case," Gambit added.

Just in case of what, he wasn't sure. Days of thinking and pacing and thinking some more hadn't brought him any clearer an idea of what he was going to do. But staying on Avalon would mean that he couldn't do anything. It would be a decision. Planetside, he could at least delay his choice a few more hours.

"Very well," Magneto told him. "Will you require pickup as well?"

Gambit shook his head. "_Quoi qu'il arrive_, I ain't never comin' back here again."

* * *

_Rogue._

_Yes, sir?_

_Are you well?_

_Yeah, Ah'm okay._

_I need you to do something for me._

_Yeah?_

_I need you to go out to Calverton and stand guard over Senator Creed's home._

_What? Why? No!_

_Please, Rogue._

_Ah don't WANT to. _He could hear the whimper in her mental voice; she sounded sixteen again.

_I know that you don't. I'm not feeling too charitable towards him, either. But he is a human, and we protect humans. _

_That thing ain't no human._

_His life may be in danger. If the jury rules against Scott, Magneto will want him dead._

_Finally, somethin' he and Ah agree on._

_I know that it's a lot to ask of you, Rogue. I wouldn't give you this task if I could think of a way around it, but everyone else is effectively trapped here on Avalon. They cannot leave without Magneto's assistance. Beyond that, there's the problem of what you may be up against. Most of Magneto's known associates are up here, but we never did find Pyro._

_Ain't he Australian? He's probably in Australia. _

_I can't guarantee that. And no one on the team is as well-equipped to deal with Pyro as you are._

Rogue hesitated. _Don't make me do this, Professor. Ah HATE Creed . . . Ah want him tuh DIE . . . he stole mah whole life from me. Please don't make me do it._

_Hush, Rogue. It's all right. Of course I'm not going to make you do anything. We'll think of some other way. _

_No, _Rogue responded. Charles heard a catch in her voice that was as close as he'd ever seen her come to crying. His chest ached in response. _No. Ah'll do it. _

_Are you sure?_

_Ah'm an X-Man. Ah'll do it._

_Thank you. I'm sending you the location; can you see it?_

_Yeah, Ah see it. Man, Ah don't wanna go upstate. _

Charles smiled; he could hear the change in her voice. Her whimper of genuine pain had faded, replaced with the familiar whine of a belligerent teenager. _I appreciate this more than I can say._

_You'd better. When we get home, Ah want a car. _

_A car in addition to your ability to fly?_

_Uh-huh. A nice one._

_Well, we'll talk about it._

* * *

_Quoi qu'il arrive_: Whatever happens.


	41. Chapter 41

Chapter 41

* * *

"You're coming today?" asked a man Gambit had never seen before who sounded suspiciously like Kurt.

"Dat's yo' disguise?" Gambit demanded. "Y'look like Humphrey Bogart, _mon gar._"

"Everyvone's a critic," Kurt complained. "You know you can't get into ze trial. You'll get arrested."

"Dat'd be embarrassing. I ain't comin' to de trial. Got other errands to run."

"Like vhat?"

"Since when d'I answer questions like dat?" Gambit swung up into the open sphere with Pietro, Sabertooth, and Betsy. Kurt followed him.

No one said anything until they'd landed in Central Park. There, Gambit buttoned up his coat against the cold and announced, "See y'all later."

"Steal us something good for the victory party, will you?" Betsy requested. "Champagne would be nice."

"See what I can do."

It was, he reflected, only partly a lie. If there was any champagne in Senator Creed's house, he'd drink it in her honor.

He headed east out of the park, looking for a gas station. It would be hard to find an unattended vehicle at this hour of the morning, but there was no rush. He had all day.

* * *

Logan and Jean had spent the night on a train from Winnipeg to Toronto. They ate breakfast in the station—just McDonald's, though Jean admitted that after two weeks of Korean food even an Egg McMuffin won points for familiarity— and watched the news while they waited for their connecting train to Penn Station.

"Tensions are running high in the streets of New York this morning as the jury prepares to hear closing arguments in the landmark trial of Scott Summers. Senator Graydon Creed, who has been closely following the trial proceedings, spoke to NBC correspondent Nancy Deans."

The feed cut to Senator Creed's face. Jean had never met him in person, and hadn't seen much of him from the news footage in Seoul. This morning, he struck her as leonine, with his thick, wavy dark blond hair and peculiarly light brown eyes. Predatory.

"This trial has been historic all the way through," he told the reporter. "The prosecution has been fair and thorough, and I'm confident the jury will bring in a well-considered verdict and we'll be able to bring some peace to the families of our dead Marines."

"Are you worried about the possibility of riots here downtown if the verdict is guilty?"

"No, I'm not. Obviously mutant registration is still a hot-button issue, and a lot of people are very emotional, but I believe that New Yorkers and Americans overall have faith in our justice system and will abide by the verdict."

"Thank you, Senator Creed."

"He's bluffing," Jean decided.

"How do you know? You reading minds via satellite now?"

She reached up and placed a finger between her eyebrows. "He's got little worry lines right here. He's under stress."

"Good call. I was more interested in the sweat on his forehead, myself."

"Are you done eating? We need to catch our train."

"Yep. Let's go home."

* * *

Warren Worthington was wishing he hadn't worn this suit.

It was one of his nicer outfits, had cost a ridiculous amount of money, and made him look both powerful and attractive. He'd reserved it specifically for the last day of the trial, for moral support. The problem was that it was just a hair too tight. His wings, pinned to his back under a self-made harness, were feeling squeezed and itchy. He wanted to fidget and squirm like a ten-year-old kid in church.

He was one of the first spectators into the courtroom, and took his by-now-usual place behind the defense table, where he had an unimpeded (if uninteresting) view of the back of Scott's head. A few minutes after, the Avalon delegation filed in amongst the crowd. Magneto was the only member of the group he recognized on sight. With the five of them, himself, and Scott, there were seven mutants here to see the fate of their people decided. How many more of the spectators here were mutants in hiding, watching in silence as their future unfolded?

The tips of his wings were starting to tingle from the pressure of his too-tight vest. Warren fidgeted his shoulders and wished this were over.

Judge Webb rapped her gavel against the bench. "Come to order."

The room obediently settled into silence.

"Madam District Attorney, are you prepared to make your closing statement?"

"I am, Your Honor."

"You may proceed."

Warren settled back against the bench, took a deep breath, and let it out. _Here we go._

* * *

Rogue, just to spite the universe, had stayed up late the night before, watching one mediocre movie after another, and then let herself sleep late the next morning. She showered, loaded up her backpack, payed her bill at the front desk, and started walking towards the edge of town where she could fly away unobserved.

She did not want to go upstate. She did not want to spend all day hanging around Creed's empty house. She did not want to protect Creed from anything . . . particularly not from Pyro, who was an obnoxious human being and who could burn the clothing off her back, though he couldn't do her any actual harm. This was going to be a long, boring day at best, and a nasty, destructive fight at worst . . . and all to protect a man she'd like to kill herself.

Professor Xavier's directions had been good, and she was able to find the house with a minimum of fuss. It was huge: not as big as the Institute, by any means, but much too big to elicit any sympathy. Apparently the U.S. Senate paid pretty well.

In the interests of discretion, she landed in one of the old-growth trees that lined the road and climbed down until she could drop onto the sidewalk. She brushed bracken out of her hair, hitched her backpack up onto her shoulders, took a deep breath, let it out, and headed for the front door.

For some unfathomable reason, she took the long way around, going up the paved walk rather than cutting across the lawn. She smiled at her own fastidiousness, the same instinct that had made her go back and pay for the pair of shoes she'd stolen on her first "job." She'd trained herself so carefully to follow all the rules.

She'd planned to just shove the door open, forcing the bolts through the doorframe, but the knob turned easily under her hand.

The door was unlocked.

Rogue experienced about two seconds of raw, walls-closing-in panic. She was an X-Man, trained to fight in teams, and she was completely alone with an unlocked door swinging silently open in front of her. This was a trap, and she was alone.

Her reflexes responded to the flash of silver before her brain even perceived it was there.

And there she stood, clutching in one hand the end of the gleaming metal staff that Gambit had swung at her head.

* * *

"All rise."

Scott stood up, yet again, tugging at the bottom of his suit jacket in the hopes that it still lay smooth. _Last day. I'll be on my way home tomorrow._

He heard the judge's chair scrape against the floor of the bench. "Be seated."

And down again.

"Mrs. Braddock, are you prepared to make your closing argument?"

"Yes, your Honor."

"You may proceed."

Scott heard her stand up again, and her heels began clacking across the floor. "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I beseech you to remember that seven American servicemen are dead. Mr. Summers and his colleagues killed them. They did so deliberately, with a full understanding of the consequences of their actions. Mr. Summers, himself, has admitted as much to you."

He could hear pencils scratching madly behind him; the reporters were having a grand old time.

"Mr. Summers's mutant abilities are what many of us would call unimaginable. His genetic code allows him to manipulate energy in ways our best scientists can't even begin to understand. And he is far from the most powerful mutant in the Xavier Institute. Telepaths who can invade and control our minds . . . teleporters and phasers to whom walls and locks mean nothing . . . teenagers able to manipulate matter and warp reality without restraint, either by the laws of this country or by the laws of physics . . . and tech wizards who can do absolutely anything with a computer. There is no way to say for certain if there is anything mutants can't do. Seven American servicemen went into that house, and seven dead bodies came out. Every record provided by the U.S. Armed Forces and the New York State National Guard, including the testimonies of no less than nine eyewitnesses, attest to the fact that this action was a legal arrest. The only contradictory evidence was provided by the mutants themselves.

"American servicemen are dead. Their families need closure. The people of America need to know that mutants are subject to the rule of law. Scott Summers, alias Cyclops, is only the first mutant to threaten the safety of the people around him. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you have an opportunity today to send a message and set a precedent. Human mutation is the defining issue of our age. You have the chance, here and now, to declare that humanity will not be cowed by the consequences of mutation . . . that mutants will be made to submit to the rule of law. Summers killed American soldiers in cold blood. He must be made accountable for that choice. A guilty verdict is the only one that you can legally and ethically bring."

* * *

_Mon gar_: dude.


End file.
